Scandinavians: In Search of the Soul of the North (now in paperback)

by Robert Ferguson

A journey of discovery though two millennia of Scandinavia’s history, culture and society, "told with deep knowledge and an intoxicating passion" (BBC).

Scandinavia is the epitome of cool: we fill our homes with Nordic furniture; we envy their humane social welfare system and their healthy outdoor lifestyle; we glut ourselves on their crime fiction. But how valid is this outsider’s view of Scandinavia, and how accurate our picture of life in Scandinavia today?

Scandinavians follows a chronological progression across the Northern centuries: the Vendel era of Swedish prehistory; the age of the Vikings; the Christian conversions of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland; the unified Scandinavian state of the late Middle Ages; the sea-change of the Reformation; the kingdom of Denmark-Norway; King Gustav Adolphus and the age of Sweden’s greatness; the cultural golden age of Ibsen, Strindberg and Munch; the impact of the Second World War; Scandinavia’s postwar social democratic nirvana; and the terror attacks of Anders Behring Breivik.

Scandinavians is also a personal investigation, with award-winning author Robert Ferguson as the ideal companion. Paperback, 480 pages.