Throughout the United States and Europe, a revival of interest in all things Germanic is taking place. This can be seen in the growth of pre-Christian religious movements, and in the much wider popularity of movies, novels, and television shows about the Viking Age. Just as other ethnicities show a healthy desire to reconnect with their indigenous past, the revival of Germanic culture appeals to people of European descent who feel cut off from their deepest ancestral roots.

But as Stephen Flowers argues in the pages of his far-reaching book, this is only the latest phase in a larger reawakening with a rich, if troubled, history. He defines what constitutes the Germanic Tradition, and explains how this tradition was fragmented and submerged with the coming of Christianity to the Goths, the Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Scandinavians. More importantly, he shows how the northern spirit survived in myriad and sometimes surprising places: from literary works such as Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied, to the teachings of Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart, and in the religious, political, and legal institutions of medieval England, Iceland, and Scandinavia.

The first volume of a trilogy, The Northern Dawn series will chronicle the ways in which the Germanic Tradition has shaped our history, how it still speaks to us today, and how it may yet help to forge a meaningful and promising future in the midst of an increasingly aimless and atomized world.