Editors: E.I. Khouri and Jens E. Olesen
Publisher:  Cambridge University Press – 1,152 pages
Book Review by: Sonu Chandiram

This second volume in the series on Scandinavia was published in July 2016. The first volume was published in 2003. It was entitled The Cambridge History of Scandinavia – Volume I – From Prehistory to 1520. I urge readers to obtain a copy of that volume as well, in order to get a better ‘picture’ of the current characteristics and history of that region of Europe: the Nordic states. A third volume is planned, but its publication date is yet unknown.

The Nordic states include Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, and Sweden. They share a common geographic, historic and socio-cultural distinctness that differs from the rest of Europe. This common distinctness provides the rationale for compiling a comprehensive and comparative history of Scandinavia.

One of those distinctions is the relative prosperity and higher incomes of people in Scandinavia compared to the rest of the world. According to 2018 World Bank numbers, the  average per-year nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were the following, by world rank: No.3 Norway – $81,807; No.5 Iceland – $73,791; No.9 Denmark – $60,596, No.11 Sweden – $54,112; and No.14 Finland – $49,960. Figures are not available for Greenland. Aerage for the five nations: over $64,000. This is many multiples of the world average GDP of $11,368, and many times the lowest national GDP of $307 (South Sudan). For Norway, it is 266 times.

This book covers a quarter of a millennium-long history of Scandinavia from the close of the Middle Ages in 1520 to formation of nation states in 1870. This is a very lengthy period, indeed, as is the length of this volume: 1,152 pages.

The immense work of organizing and producing this volume was shared by 37 specialists on Scandinavian history, including two editors, residing in the above-mentioned Nordic states, as well as in Germany and the United Kingdom. To provide you an overview of the subjects covered and the topics discussed in this volume, we list below its 9 parts and 50 chapters:

Introduction

  1. Part I – Reformation and Reorganization, 1520-1600
  2. The disintegration of the medieval church
  3. Social, political, and religious tensions
  4. The Reformation in Denmark, Norway, and Iceland
  5. The Reformation in Sweden and Finland
  6. Intellectual currents
  7. The crown and the aristocracy in co-operation in Denmark and Sweden (the ‘aristocratic regime’)
  8. Part II – Material Expansion and Its Limitation
  9. Growth and stagnation of population and settlement
  10. Economic growth and trade
  11. Social consequences
  12. Part III – The Scandinavian Power States
  13. The internationalization of the Baltic market
  14. The Dutch and the English in the Baltic, the North Sea and the Arctic
  15. The struggle for supremacy in the Baltic between Denmark and Sweden, 1563-1721
  16. Militarization of Scandinavia, 1520-1870
  17. Colonial empires
  18. The military imperative
  19. Fiscal and military developments
  20. From aristocratic regime to absolutism, 1660-82
  21. The consolidation of the Nordic states: the Europeanization of Scandinavia
  22. Center and periphery
  23. Religious and social regimentation
  24. Part IV – Society in the Eighteenth Century
  25. Democracy and family, c.1650-1815
  26. Economy and social conditions
  27. Material and popular culture
  28. The situation of the commoners, 1650-1750
  29. Religious and intellectual currents
  30. Cultural Europeanization, court culture and aristocratic taste, c. 1580-1750
  31. Architecture, literature and the arts
  32. Music and the Danish and Swedish courts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
  33. Music in Scandinavia in the eighteenth century
  34. Part V – Political Structures and Foreign Policy
  35. Constitution and politics
  36. Denmark in the Napoleonic wars, 1807-14
  37. Part VI – The New Economic Order
  38. Scandinavia between the Congress of Vienna and the Paris Commune
  39. The demographic transition during the period 1815-70: mortality decline and population growth
  40. Agricultural development in Scandinavia, c. 1800-50#
  41. Industrial expansion
  42. Part VII – The New Social Order
  43. New social categories in town and country
  44. Social reactions at different levels
  45. The beginning of the Great Emigration
  46. Everyday life
  47. The education of new groups in society
  48. Arts and architecture
  49. Literature
  50. Part VIII – The New Political Order
  51. The constitutional situation
  52. The idea of Scandinavianism
  53. Finland: the emergence of the nation state
  54. Denmark: the emergence of the nation state
  55. Norway: the emergence of the nation state
  56. Sweden: the emergence of the nation state
  57. Iceland: the emergence of the nation state
  58. Part IX – Conclusion
  59. From the Reformation to the formation of nation states and civic societies, 1520-1870

This is an excellent volume on the 250-year history of Scandinavia from 1520 to 1870.

Editors:

E.I. Khouri is Professor Emeritus of General History at the University of Helsinki in Finland

Jens E. Olesen is Professor of Nordic history at the University of Greifswald in Germany.