Extreme North: A Cultural History

This book explores cultural fantasies of the North, from sea monsters and a mountain-sized magnet to mythmaking racism. Author Bernd Brunner reconstructs encounters between adventurers, colonists, and indigenous communities that created a northern “cabinet of wonders” and imbued Scandinavia, Iceland, and the Arctic with a perpetual mystique.

Like mythological sagas, Extreme North explores the dramatic fjords of Scandinavia and the Western psyche’s obsession with Nordic whiteness. Brunner highlights cultural and political fictions from early “discoveries” to the eugenicist elevation of the “Nordic” phenotype, which influenced America’s immigration limits. Brunner traces how crackpot Nazi philosophies linked the “Aryan race” to the upper latitudes, influencing modern pseudoscientific fantasies of racial and cultural superiority.

(This book may contain a sharpie mark on the top or bottom edge and may show mild signs of shelfwear.)