of men in far-flung places, and remind us that the effects of the Viking experience were just as profound in Scandinavia itself as in the parts of northern Europe touched by the Viking raids. The raids brought Scandinavia into much closer contact with other parts of Europe, paving the way for conversion to Christianity, and bringing economic and social changes which were to lead to the political unification of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. For a while at least, around 900, Scandinavia was at the centre of a whole network of connections and exchanges which gave northern Europe a kind of unity which it never had before or since.
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