"'...the Dalesmen will come here in force, learn how to make weapons like the ancients had - and drive the invaders away!'" (p. 42)
This is a historic opportunity. Drive the Lann invaders back, yes, but then make peace, share the benefits of technology and build a new world no longer divided into hostile armed camps. The combination of restored technology with the lesson of the Doom should make this possible. On that basis, further advances in technology should make competition for reduced resources even less necessary whereas cooperation against the advancing ice will become necessary.
Poul Anderson usually ends a novel optimistically but anticipating his twin values of freedom and diversity, not universal peace. How does he end this novel? I cannot remember from previous readings. (Peace, of course, should be dynamic, not static, but our competitive economy encourages aggression and almost equates peace with death. Do I exaggerate? No.)
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