From the Vikings to the EU the Baltic has been a Nordic Mediterranean, a shared maritime zone with distinct patterns of trade, cultural exchange, and conflict. Covering a thousand years in a part of the globe where seas are more connective than land, Michael North’s overview transforms the way we think about one of the world’s great waterways.

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisherConverse with the locals in their own language as you explore the fascinating Baltic countries. Sample some Latvian piragi, ride a trolliga around Talinn and know what to do when someone shouts Iogeriam! or Iki dugno! In Lithuania. Packed with tips and cultural information, this handy phrasebook will help you make the most of your Baltic travel adventure.Pack this phrasebook for : Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia covers Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian clear and concise grammar sections for each language easy to use pronunciation guides and transliterations throughout indispensable information about local festivals and holidays essential language for camping, sightseeing and getting around Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Alan Trei, Eva Aras, Inna Feldbach, Jana Teteris, and Lisa Trei.About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in.TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)

Viking marauders in their longships burst through the defences of ninth-century Europe, striking terror into the hearts of peasants and rulers alike for two centuries. But the Vikings were more than just marine warriors and this atlas shows their development as traders and craftsmen, explorers, settlers and mercenaries. With over sixty full colour maps, it follows the tracks of the Viking merchants who travelled deep into Russia, of Viking mercenaries who served in the emperor’s bodyguard at Constantinople, and Viking mariners who sailed beyond the edge of the known world to North America.

The 'Northern Crusades', inspired by the Pope's call for a Holy War, are less celebrated than those in the Middle East, but they were also more successful: vast new territories became and remain Christian, such as Finland, Estonia and Prussia. Newly revised in the light of the recent developments in Baltic and Northern medieval research, this authoritative overview provides a balanced and compelling account of a tumultuous era.

This is the first book in Fogelstrom's five-volume Stockholm Series, which broke the record for bestsellers in his native Sweden. After reading the series in Swedish, Jennifer Brown Baverstam, an accomplished translator of Swedish and French, and married to a Swede, vowed to make these books available in English to share with her American family and friends. Per Anders Fogelstrom was delighted with this effort and worked with Jennifer until his death in 1998.

Neil Kent's book sweeps through Sweden's history from the Stone Age to the present day. Early coverage includes Viking hegemony, the Scandinavian Union, the Reformation and Sweden's political zenith as Europe's greatest superpower in the seventeenth century, while later chapters explore the Swedish Enlightenment, royal absolutism, the commitment to military neutrality and Pan-Scandinavianism. The author brings his account up to date by focusing on more recent developments: the rise of Social Democracy, the establishment of the welfare state, the country's acceptance of membership in the European Union and its progressive ecological programme. The book successfully combines the politics, economics and social and cultural mores of one of the world's most successfully functioning and humane societies. This is an informative and entertaining account for students and general readers.

Helsinki is one of the world's most northerly capitals, but it is by no means a city frozen in northern wastes. Situated along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, magnificent lakes and forests reach into Helsinki's urban heart, a rare event in today's world of suburban sprawl. The city's natural beauty, emphasized by parks and islands, is matched by an extraordinary cultural richness, the result of fruitful foreign influences and home-grown creativity. The Finnish capital offers a spectacular display of architecture and design: from the neoclassical magnificence imposed by a Russian Tsar to the modernist chic of Nordic functionalism. Neil Kent explores the history and culture of the "Daughter of the Baltic", a small fishing village that became a powerhouse of design and technology. Tracing its dramatic past of conflict and conflagration, he explores the evolution of a national, and urban, identity through architecture, art and writing. Through such differing cultural phenomena as saunas, railway stations and tango, he explains why Helsinki is a distinctive mix of tradition and innovation. * City of Architects and Designers: Engel, Tsar Alexander I and the creation of an imperial metropolis; Alvar Aaalto and the birth of the modern; functionalism and high-tech innovation. * City of Music and the Arts: Sibelius, the national composer; conductors and performers; art galleries and installations; National Romanticism and the Nordic aesthetic. * City of Hospitality: Art Nouveau hotels and cafes; sauna culture; famous visitors and refugees: Lenin and Hitler; multicultural Helsinki and a history of migration.

Though retired newspaper reporter Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins, Henrie O to her friends, once turned down a marriage proposal from Jimmy Lennox, he's still one of her most cherished friends. So when he asks for her help on behalf of his wife, world-famous documentary filmmaker Sophia Montgomery, Henrie O reluctantly agrees to join them on a Baltic cruise. Sophia is the stepmother to the now-grown heirs of a great fortune, who are none too happy that she controls their inheritance. But do they really want her dead? Jimmy thinks so, and he wants Henrie O to prove it.On the cruise, Henrie O soon realizes that this dysfunctional family is plunging toward destruction. As the ports of call pass—Copenhagen, Gdynia, Tallinn, St. Petersburg—death inexorably approaches. But Henrie O discovers that love, once kindled, never dies. When Jimmy is accused of murder and time is running out, she pursues a clever killer who won't hesitate to strike again.

The Christening is the saga of love, intrigue, and betrayal during the collapse of the Soviet Union.In 1973, Piret Anvelt, a young and uneducated Estonian girl, finds herself abandoned by her lover when she becomes pregnant. Her family forces her to give the baby girl to her beautiful cousin Helena, who has recently married. While Piret's daughter grows up across the Baltic in freedom in Sweden, Piret becomes a devout communist party member and Marxist economist. She transforms herself into the perfect Party member and never makes a compromising mistake. When she visits Stockholm as a Soviet official, she discovers that her painful secret has become a tool in the hands of the KGB. She and her child are now pawns in an intricate plot to persecute the man Piret loves.Rather than harm the daughter she has never known, Piret sacrifices her position and privileges and returns home to a life of disgrace. But, in 1991, the USSR is crumbling and Estonia declares independence. Is it too late for Piret to pick up the pieces of her life?

"Readers should be prepared to keep the lights on at night after finishing this unnerving collection."--Publishers Weekly"A gripping collection...Whether you are already a fan of the gloomy Finns or are new to the uniquely sinister aspect of Scandinavian literature, this book will provide steady entertainment."--Reviewing the Evidence"This is a good collection of all kinds of stories."--Journey of a Bookseller"Mystery and true crime readers will appreciate the styles from all over the world, and embrace the darkness that every culture shares--no matter how hard they try to hide it."--Mom Read ItLaunched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.Featuring brand-new stories by: Leena Lehtolainen, Johanna Holmström, James Thompson, Antti Tuomainen, Jesse Itkonen, Joe L. Murr, Jukka Petäjä, Tapani Bagge, Pekka Hiltunen, Teemu Käskinen, Tuomas Lius, Riikka Ala-Harja, Karo Hämäläinen, and Jarkko Sipila.From the introduction by James Thompson:"Finland, the myths and truths. Internationally, it has a reputation as perhaps the best place in the world to live. A great economy. A low crime rate. Good and nearly cost-free health care. The needy are provided for by the state and live in reasonable comfort. Finns: peaceful and quiet people, living in the perfect example of a social democracy functioning as it should. A tourist, or even a person who has lived here for a length of time, might well view Finland as such. There is some truth to this, but like every country, Finland has many truths...Finland is, like the theme so often explored in Star Trek, a parallel universe in which, on the surface, all seems normal, but under that shell lie vast differences...As this book demonstrates, Finland is a noir nation [and] this anthology is, I believe, the best representation of Finnish noir ever offered to the international community. Every word rings true. It holds Finland up in a way that not only exposes this wonderful and fascinating country to the world, but acts as a mirror that reflects its people and culture in a way every Finn will recognize, vocalizing those truths that are so seldom spoken here amongst ourselves."