 Rudgley spends much of the book emphasising the dark and violent side of Odin, according to "Independent" reviewer David V. Barrett, "committing the ultimate sin of any anthropologist or historian, back-projecting from highly selective examples of unpleasantness today and photo-fitting them to a distorted image from the mythological past".Barrett concludes that Rudgely's book is "a catalogue of racist individuals and organisations whose only connection with Odin, through very dubious links, is by assertion rather than argument.