Trinokli's New Book Explores the History of Love from Vikings to Tinder

Trinokli publishing house releases a monograph by Norwegian cultural scholar Mads Larsen that examines falling in love, finding a partner, and becoming a parent throughout history. The book "Love Stories from Vikings to Tinder" places contemporary romantic life—including problems with dating apps—in a broader historical context. The publisher has released an excerpt from the chapter dealing with the incel movement and "incel" culture.

A new work examining the history of love and partner-finding has been published in the book series of Trinokli, an Estonian publishing house, spanning from bride kidnappings to contemporary dating apps. The monograph by Norwegian interdisciplinary cultural scholar Mads Larsen is titled "Love Stories from Vikings to Tinder" and is the second publication in the series.

What does the book address?

Larsen's work is written with a broader readership in mind—it is not a dry academic treatment, but rather a reader-friendly monograph that places falling in love, finding a partner, and becoming a parent within a larger historical pattern. According to the author, changes in romantic life ultimately shape the fate of entire societies.

The book traces how people's romantic lives have changed through the centuries—from the Viking age with bride kidnappings to the establishment of enforced monogamy and onward to the present digital age, where dating apps have created a kind of "broken" romantic marketplace. The publisher released an excerpt from a chapter dealing with the so-called incel movement and "incel" culture—phenomena that partly characterize contemporary young men's attitudes toward forming relationships.

The mission of Trinokli's series

The mission of Trinokli's book series is to bring readers works that attempt to look to the future from the foundation of the best current knowledge. An interdisciplinary approach—combining history, cultural studies, sociology, and psychology—is a hallmark of this series. Larsen's book is a good example of how academic knowledge can reach wide audiences without making compromises in scientific rigor.