The Vikings were one of the most dominant forces in Western Europe from the 9th until the 11th centuries. They were able to dominate their neighbors in large part due to the superior technology of their longships. They were able to move fast, sail in shallow waters, and even take their ships over land, giving them a strategic advantage. But at the same time, their unusual ship design makes it almost unbelievable that they were able to safely sail to the Americas and back.   How exactly were Viking ships designed, how were they different from ship designs elsewhere in Europe, and what were the benefits and disadvantages of their unique approach to seafaring?   Not Just Warships Boat burial of the god Balder, illustration by W.G. Collingwood, 1908. Source: My Norse Digital Image Repository   While we mostly talk about Viking longships, this was only one of the many types of vessels built by the Vikings. They made everything from tiny fishing boats to barge ferries, to transport goods and livestock.   Heavy freight-carrying merchant ships were called Knarr. They were wide, deep, and slow. They could carry up to 40 tons of goods. These were probably used exclusively to transport goods up and down the Scandinavian coast and to colonies in the North Sea. Traders sailing Russian rivers and the Caspian Sea, on the other hand, used lighter Byrding vessels.   But longships stand out because these were what transported Viking raiders to terrorize their Christian neighbors. This was also the type of ship used for Viking ship burials for wealthy and important individuals.   Longship design was different in different regions and across the Viking period. For example, the earliest Viking longships were made from oak, which is strong and excellent for sailing. It would have taken about three oak trunks to make just one ship. Consequently, by the 10th century, while the Danes were still using oak, the Norwegians and Swedes had switched to more available pine.   Nevertheless, most Viking longships share a few distinct features. Despite this consistency, there is no evidence that the Vikings used written diagrams or plans. The art was probably passed down personally from master craftsman to apprentice, usually a son, over years of working together.   Viking Longship Design Construction and oar details from a reconstructed Viking ship. Source: Museum of the Viking Age, Norway   The main characteristic of Viking longships was that they were long and narrow. Exactly how long depended on the number of rowing benches as indicated by holes on each side that allowed for oars to be easily deployed and returned. However, many boats did not have actual benches for the rowers. To save space, rowers would sit on their sea chests.   The smallest surviving longships had only six benches on each side. To be useful in war, a longship needed at least 20 banks. This would mean that it could carry a crew of 41: 40 rowers and the steering cox. These boats, called Snekkja, are the most common surviving ships, measuring an average of 55 feet long and 8 feet wide.   There were also larger ships called Skeid which had 30 rowing benches on each side. The longest of these so far discovered is known as Roskilde 6 and it is one of five ships discovered in Roskilde Fjord in the 1960s. It seems to have been intentionally sunk to form a blockade across the fjord in the early 11th century. The ship was 121 feet long. There are stories in the sagas of even bigger longships, but none have yet been found in the archeological record.   Details of timber construction of the Viking ship known as Roskilde 6, Norway, 11th century. Source: Museum of the Viking Age, Norway   As well as being long, Viking longships were shallow. Most had a maximum draught (the depth a boat sinks under the water) of 0.5-1 meter. This meant that they could sail into shallows and down rivers considered unnavigable by other Europeans. This is how the Vikings arrived at the gates of Paris and how they surprised cities that did not believe they needed river defenses.   The ships were also very lightweight, which meant that the crew could carry them across land between sailable bodies of water. There is also good evidence that they turned their ships upside down and used them as shelters when on land.   According to Norse mythology, the god Freyr owned a ship called Skidlbladnir, which was big enough to carry all the gods and their steeds in full armor, but then folded down like a piece of paper to fit in the god’s pocket. Clearly, a dream vessel.   Oseberg Ship used in an aristocratic burial, Norway, 9th century. Source: Museum of the Viking Age, Norway   The boats were made from long planks of timber, usually oak, that were laid overlapping and nailed together. They were made watertight by filling the spaces between the planks of wood with wool, moss, or animal hair mixed with tar or tallow. This type of construction is known as clinker or lapstrake construction.   Three-inch iron rivets and round iron washers were used as fasteners. Wooden treenails that swelled up when wet were also used. A treenail was essentially a wooden dowel crafted to fit a bored hole like a bolt. The strakes were attached to ribs that were in turn attached to a narrow keel running fore and aft down the centerline of the hull. The strakes of the ship were much thinner than most people realize, often only 0.78-1.18 inches thick (almost paper thin).   Some Viking longships were decorated to look like a dragon or a sea snake, with a vicious head carved at the front of the ship. These were called Drakkar and must have been a fearsome sight on the horizon.   How to Sail Detail of a Viking ship from the Stora Hammars Runestone, Sweden, 7th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Viking longships had wind sails. Most used one large, square sail made from wool that was crisscrossed with leather strips so that it would retain its shape when wet. When there was no wind, the Vikings would take to the oars. And no, slaves weren’t normally used as there simply wasn’t space.   Oars weren’t all the same length. On one ship, oars were found to range from 17-19 feet in length. This was to accommodate the slight bulge in the middle of the ship.   It is also true that the Vikings hung their shields on the side of the boat next to their rowing stations. They could act as protection against arrows while rowing up to a conflict. It was probably also a useful place to store them.   In addition to not leaving behind any ship designs, there is also no evidence that the Vikings used navigational tools such as astrolabes, sextants, or star charts known in other parts of the world. If the sagas are to be believed, Leif Erikson was told how to reach North America by another Viking who had been there, over a mug of ale.   In the early days, the Vikings probably sailed close to the shore and used the physical terrain, the depth of the ocean, and the presence of birds and other sea creatures to determine their location. But this would not have been effective when sailing to England and Ireland, let alone further afield to Iceland, Greenland, and the Americas.   A modern speculative replica of the Uunartoq Disc, the remains of which were found in the ruins of a Norse Greenland homestead. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Nevertheless, the sagas indicate that the Vikings used the sun for navigation, as there are several mentions of sunstones. These devices allowed sailors to locate the sun on overcast days. In one famous story, King Olaf of Norway asks the hero Sigurd to determine the position of the sun behind dark clouds with no instrumentation. Sigurd does so, and the king uses a sunstone to determine if he is correct. No examples of sunstones survive in the archeological record.   If the Vikings did use the sun to navigate, then they probably used a sun compass. This is a simple vertical pointer on a horizontal surface that is engraved with a curved line. The shadow cast by the pointer is different at different latitudes, but also at different times of year. This is why other European sailors who used sextants, which functioned in a similar way, also had a nautical almanac to interpret their readings on different days of the year.   But the Vikings had a sailing season, usually the summer, and they would have been aware of where the sun was supposed to be during those months. The Vikings were known to raid year-round, but in the colder months, they would have attacked nearby targets.   Excavations of a Viking age farm in Greenland have revealed the remains of part of a circular disk with carvings, which could have been a sun compass. On the Faroe Islands, people used to use an instrument called the Solskyggafjol, which is very similar to the sun compass. This may have been a technology that the locals adopted from the Vikings that settled there.   Built for Raiding Viking-style longships depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, England, 11th century. Source: Museum of the Viking Age, Norway   But how exactly were Viking longships different from the ships sailed by other Europeans at the time?   While there were many different ship designs across the continent, most other Europeans were making ships with bluff bows. This means that the bottom of the ship looked like a barn door curved into a semicircle. This made for much slower ships, since the bluff bow resists the water, rather than cutting through it, like Viking ships and modern ships.   Other European ships also tended to be tall, with superstructures ascending from the stern and bow. Having so much hull above the waterline meant that there was a lot of windage to be battered around.   When it comes to draught, the portion of the ship below the water, other European ships had deep holds and round bilges, and extended far beneath the water. This prevented these ships from entering the same shallow waters as the Vikings.   Why was their design so different? These slower ships had a lot more space, were much safer, and were less likely to be inundated by waves during a storm. Viking ships were vulnerable to flooding during storms, and while they could navigate shallower waters, it took an expert to avoid underwater hazards that could damage the ship’s hull.   Reconstruction of a Viking ship. Source: Picryl   In addition, the design of Viking ships meant that they had minimal storage and no protected places to sleep. The evidence suggests that when sailing close to the shore, the Vikings parked up and camped on land. When they couldn’t go ashore, they had to sleep exposed on the deck under animal skins. This makes the fact that the Vikings sailed between Greenland and North America even more impressive. It would have meant between two and six weeks on the open sea.   The Vikings, of course, knew about other European ship technology because they had seen it. Yet they seem to have preferred their faster and more versatile ships, even if they were more dangerous.   A Viking Armada Viking raiders arriving at Lindisfarne from Manuscript MS M.736 fol. 9v, England, 12th century. Source: The Morgan Library and Museum   At the start of the Viking Age, most Viking ships were owned by coastal farmers who used them to transport goods. But when local military leaders called their loyal men to fight, they would bring their boats to contribute to the force. As time passed, wealthy Viking leaders could also construct fleets for themselves, but these would always be augmented by boats owned by their allies.   If the sources are to be believed, the Vikings did manage to gather together some rather large fleets. We are told that when the Vikings attacked the Franks in 845, they sailed up the Seine with 129 ships. It is reported that Canute the Great had 1,200 ships when he was fighting in Norway in 1028. That is a significant armada, even by modern standards.   In many ways, Viking longships reflected Viking society and values. They prioritized the potential for victory and success over safety and security.

  The term “hipster” is elusive and frequently wielded as an insult, yet it has a rich history. The first hipsters were young Black jazz aficionados in 1940s Harlem. Their hipster culture was appropriated in the 1950s by young middle-class whites of the Beat Generation. By the late 1990s, “hipster” had acquired almost wholly negative connotations, describing affluent, coffee-drinking middle-class whites living in gentrified urban neighborhoods.   From its roots in the Harlem jazz scene to the Beat Generation and its contemporary manifestations, the trajectory of hipster culture underscores a wider shift from a radical revolt against the mainstream to the triumph of consumer culture.   The Original Harlem Hipsters Bebop pioneer, jazz trumpet virtuoso, and hipster style icon, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, c.1947. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Following the peak of jazz during the 1920s and 1930s, 1940s Harlem witnessed the birth of the Bebop Revolution. Often known simply as “bop,” this new avant-garde form of jazz was characterized by virtuosic technique, rapid tempos, and advanced melodies, harmonies, and chord progressions. Unlike its previous iterations, bebop was the first style of jazz to distance itself from the lure of mass appeal, catering instead to a niche audience of fellow musicians.   Many pioneers of bebop honed their craft in the big bands of the swing era. The great John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-1993) played trumpet for Cab Calloway; Charlie “Bird” Parker (1920-1955), the unquestioned genius of modern jazz, found his feet in Jay McShann’s band; Charlie Christian, jazz guitar revolutionary, played for Benny Goodman “The King of Swing.”   Bop symbolized a rejection of the vapid caricatures of Black minstrelsy and “jazz hands” showmanship of the commercial big bands. It stood as a musical revolt against the mainstream: against the big bands, the arrangers, vertical harmonies, soggy rhythms — and commercial music in general.   Moreover, bebop carried distinct political undertones. Fueled by a desire to protect their artistry from white appropriation, the likes of Parker, Gillespie, and Thelonius Monk (1917-1982), openly spoke of crafting music so difficult that “they” (whites) “would not be able to steal it.”   For Langston Hughes, the essence of bebop stemmed from the oppressive sound of violence. Every time that a cop hits a black man over the head with a billy club, it makes the same sound: “BOP! BOP!… BE-BOP!…MOP!…BOP!” Bebop was: “beaten right out some Negro’s head into them horns and saxophones and piano keys that plays it.”   Hipster icons: saxophone virtuoso Charlie Parker (left) and the legendary Miles Davis (right). Source: Wikimedia Commons   Bebop was invented in the late-night jam sessions held in the upstairs rooms of Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe’s Uptown House in Harlem, New York City. Monday night jams at Minton’s, with their “cutting sessions” (musical battles) between soloists, played a key role in the evolution from swing to bebop. The essence of this new jazz was thus deeply emotional music, expressionist, not abstract.   However, it was not to everyone’s taste. Some thought bop to be unlistenable. Many of the “traditional” luminaries of jazz were less than impressed. Cab Calloway dismissed bebop as “Chinese music,” while Louis Armstrong lamented the “weird chords” of the style and criticized the boppers as “ young cats [that] want to carve everyone else because they’re full of malice.” Their desire to show up and upstage their predecessors was deeply offensive to the old guard. In response, the boppers dubbed their opponents “moldy figs.”   Howard McGhee, Brick Fleagle, and Miles Davis on piano, 1947. Source: Wikimedia Commons   In contrast to the polished, professional image of the big band and swing players, the bebop players embraced a more laid-back lifestyle, indulged in drugs such as cannabis and heroin, and adopted liberal attitudes towards sex. As “hepcats” or later “hipsters” they forged their own subculture in which language—“jive talk”—played a pivotal role both as a means of cultural expression and insider communication.   Dressed in their trademark zoot suits, and adopting the beret, goatee, and horn-rimmed glasses combination popularized by Dizzy Gillespie, boppers projected an aura of intellectual sophistication and laid-back bohemianism. Bop embraced an ironic detachment from mainstream jazz culture, favoring what came to be known as a “hipster” attitude towards the “preponderance of squares and bad music.”   Despite never attaining the commercial success of the swing era, bebop reshaped jazz into a form of art music, more akin to Western classical music than the popular music of the masses. Nevertheless, the subculture behind it—characterized by a distinct language, fashion, and lifestyle—exerted a profound influence on subsequent waves of American—and global—“hipster” culture.   Hipsters of the Beat Generation The Beat Generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gregory Corso (left to right). Source: Wikimedia Commons   Bebop, with its distinct subculture, emerged as a reflection of Black experience. Nonetheless, it was soon co-opted by young middle-class whites. The Beat Generation—epitomized by writers such as Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg—were profoundly influenced by the spirit of bebop. They frequented New York jazz clubs and used bop talk such as “square,” “cats,” and “dig” in their writings. Jazz became the central point of reference in their universe.   The term “Beatnik” was coined in 1958 by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Herb Caen to describe members of a burgeoning movement that influenced many aspects of American culture, from art, literature, and music, to fashion and language. The movement influenced many of the biggest artists and figures of the day, including Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles.   Naturally, the use of the Russian suffix “-nik” carried derogatory connotations at the height of Cold War America. Yet the Beat Generation constituted a social and cultural movement rather than a political one. They espoused anti-conservative and anti-materialist views but had no significant ties to communism, or for that matter, any other political movement of note. Howl and Other Poems, by Allan Ginsberg, 1956. Source: Abe Books   In his 1957 essay The White Negro, Norman Mailer, a white middle-class Jew, labeled the Beat Generation and their followers “hipsters.” The crux of Mailer’s piece was to draw parallels between the existential angst of the white American “hipster” and the everyday struggles of the American “negro” — both, he asserted, inhabited worlds fraught with danger, violence, and conflict.   Like the boppers, under the constant threat of (in this case existential) death, the beats sought to detach themselves from conventional society and focus on the present moment. Emulating what they saw to be the carefree, cool lifestyle of the “negro” hipsters, the Beat Generation sought above all, to spur the social norms and the values of conservative white America, to chase “Saturday night kicks and the obligatory pleasures of the body” (Mailer, 1957).   Beatnik Culture Poetry recitation with saxophone accompaniment in a stereotypical Beatnik coffeehouse, a scene from Bucket of Blood, 1959. Source: Wikimedia Commons   While jazz provided the soundtrack to the Beat Generation various other influences were also significant. In particular, eastern religion was mobilized as a means to challenge the conservative norms and values of middle-class society. Philosophically, beatniks prioritized inner growth over material possessions and worldly pursuits.   The Zen Buddhist teachings of D.T Suzuki were deeply influential. Allen Ginsberg’s spiritual journey took him to India in 1963, after which he began integrating Hindu rhythmic mantras into his poetry. In 1958, Jack Kerouac published The Dharma Bums, a semi-autobiographical attempt to contextualize the contradictions of his life within a “Buddhist context.”   The Beats’ eclectic mix of Western Buddhism and jazz led James Baldwin to dub them the “the Suzuki rhythm boys.” More seriously, Baldwin (1961) accused Jack Kerouac in particular of presenting an image of the “happy smiling negro” within his work, which in the pre-civil rights era was emphatically untrue.   The Beatnik emulation of bop culture was highly romanticized and at worst perpetuated the dangerous white myth of black hyper-sexuality to appear “hip.” Nonetheless, for Kerouac and his contemporaries, “beat” signified “beatitude, not beat up” and a cool sense that transcendence could be found in the spirit of the new jazz.   Accordingly, the Beat Generation gave birth to the figure of the white middle-class hipster, dressed in beret and Dizzy Gillespie glasses, and nestled in the bohemian enclaves of San Francisco and the lower East side of New York City. The stereotypical hipster spent their time in coffee shops, bookstores, and bars, reading poetry and talking philosophy; they “made art, smoked dope, dug the new jazz, and spoke a bastardization of the black argot.” (Di Prima, 1969).   Contemporary Hipster Culture  The stereotypical contemporary hipster, pictured in Sidney, Australia. Source: Wikimedia Commons   The contemporary hipster refers to a late-1990s subcultural figure that first rose to public attention in select gentrified enclaves of major global cities. Brooklyn and the lower East Side of New York, Seattle’s Capitol Hill, San Francisco, Sidney, Cape Town, and East London. Today the hipster lives in all these places and more. The hipster trend is global.   The defining marker of contemporary hipster culture is fashion. The archetypal hipster male sports a beard or ironic mustache, flannel shirts, skinny jeans, and rides a fixed-gear bike. His female counterpart has retro tattoos and a top-knot hairstyle and wears vintage clothes with Converse shoes. These figures appreciate vinyl records, vegan food, slick digital design, artisanal coffee, and mid-century Scandinavian modernism.   Interestingly, unlike their hipster predecessors, there is no discernable soundtrack to contemporary hipsterdom. Instead, obscure noughties indie bands, 1980s electro and synth-pop, minimalist techno, IDM, and hip-hop artists all contribute to the scene.   Yet, a notable similarity persists across time: the value placed on insider knowledge. Just as the Harlem hipster prized the advanced knowledge of bebop, and beatniks turned their noses up at the “square” unenlightened commercial culture of white America, contemporary hipsters take pride in being ahead of the curve and “knowing about exclusive things before anyone else” (Greif, 2010).   How did the hipster burn his tongue? A sign outside a coffee shop in Helsinki, Finland, 2022. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Hipster culture is about taste, fashion, and being in the know. But like any cultural form, it has a material base. In coffee shops, record stores, bicycle repair shops, bars, etc. within gentrified enclaves of major cities and beyond.   Most importantly, hipster culture is intertwined with the material structures that define the global economy. In line with the “neoliberal” turn of the 1980s and the newfound primacy of the individual consumer, contemporary hipster culture is connected above all to an ethos of consumption. Within a global economy that “specializes in the niched mass production of consumer goods that cater to the needs of small, subcultural groups” (Maly & Varis, 2015) hipsterdom becomes primarily about rejection of mainstream “taste.”   For instance, within the popular imagination, hipsters are associated with their taste in coffee and where they drink it. They drink their (expensive) flat whites under industrial lighting, surrounded by wi-fi, white walls, and stripped-back floors. The branding of the coffee shop is low-key and features nice fonts. Young “hip” people sit on vintage or repurposed furniture on laptops. A sense of authenticity and nostalgia mingles with the modern digital economy. The hipster coffee shop looks suspiciously similar to all the other coffee shops of its kind.   The contemporary hipster has morphed into what Thomas Frank (1997) calls the “rebel consumer” — the target subject of the synthesis of business culture and counterculture, where the imagery of youthful rebellion is mobilized to market corporate products.   The contemporary hipster is degrees from the pursuits of avant-garde jazz and beatnik existentialism, focusing instead on the value of entrepreneurial start-up culture, and its potential to disrupt the mainstream. Their interests encompass craft beer, limited edition drops of trainers, and cryptocurrency. Shorn of the countercultural elements of previous generations of hipsters, contemporary hipster culture is in the last instance about niche consumer taste.

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