A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland

by Thomas Kingston Derry

This concise account traces the history of the Scandinavian countries from earliest times to the present, emphasizing common features in their heritage and in their contribution to the modern world.  The author’s aim is to describe each country’s history, traditions, and way of life and to examine the political development of the five nations in the context of the whole Nordic region.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Historical, European History, Sweden, Medieval, Finnish Literature

447 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Skallagrimsen]

I once asked a history-savvy friend what he knew about Scandinavian history. He shrugged and said: "There were some people who lived in the cold. Then they were Vikings. Then Lutherans. Then they made furniture."

Fortunately, there's a bit more to Scandinavian history than that, as this book demonstrates. It's a serviceable account of the subject, but nowhere near as witty as my friend.

[Skaitančios katės · Rating 1 out of 5]

Extremely confusing, the same events viewed from different perspectives for a few times doesn't make things any clearer, there's a huge lack of the dates of the events being described and general context. Seems that you can only understand the book when you start reading being very well aquainted with Scandinavian history.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you like 400 page long history books about Scandinavia from the 1970's that are written from a left-wing politically biased point of view?  If so, this book is the book for you.  As someone who greatly enjoys reading about the history of Scandinavia [1], I especially liked the first half of this book, which covered some often-neglected history in the period before the 19th century.  Unfortunately, the second half of the book was filled with a great deal of tedious social history and the author's obvious bias towards left wing political parties of the socialist variety.  As someone whose feelings about socialism are strongly negative, this was perhaps not the best option to win my support.  The book's informational value, particularly about the earlier history of Scandinavia is thankfully worthwhile even with the author's tiresome and incorrect political worldviews.  It is obvious, given the contents of this book, that the author feels a bit insecure about how these countries are viewed, and that insecurity actually makes the book more endearing, as someone who appreciates try harder more than not trying at all except trying to be cool.

In terms of its contents, this book offers a lot of content, and likely more than most readers will want.  Speaking personally, I am fond of political and military and diplomatic history, and this book certainly has a lot of that, but the book also has a lot of left-wing industrial and social history which I found quite tiresome and monotonous.  The author would have been better to torch his Social Democrat card before writing this book.  The book begins with a chapter on the Unknown North in the depths of prehistory and then looks at the history of the Viking Age and the early Christian period.  After that the author writes about the ill-fated Kalmar Union, the age of the Lutheran Kingdoms, and two chapters about the fateful struggle between Denmark-Norway and Sweden (among others) for the dominion of the Baltic.  Chapters on the 18th century (after the Great Northern War) and the Napolenonic Wars follow which show the divergent fate of the various nations and states of the region.  At this point the book is about halfway done and it suddenly becomes a lot more detailed with discussions about the rise of Nationalism, the fate of small powers in the shadow of great empires, two chapters on the contributions the Nordic peoples have made to civilization (one for the 19th and one for the 20th century that closes the book), as well as discussions about the aspirations of the Northern neutrals between 1914 and 1939, the impact of the Second World War, and a survey of the early Cold War period through the 1970's.

In many ways, this book is already obsolete, and so to subject it to heavy criticism is rather like beating a dead horse.  That said, since Scandinavia is still viewed as a model for those who believe in the power of government to better the general public in the present age, it is still necessary to lay the boom hammer on this book's misguided political worldview, where the author demonstrates the way that Scandinavian countries have frequently engaged in disarmament only to find their rights not respected by their more powerful neighbors, engaged in all kinds of political chicanery, and unable to unite despite a great deal of common cultural and linguistic (except for Finland) traits and background.  Despite the author's progressive political worldview, there is an undercurrent of tragedy that these small and mostly homogeneous nations have been so ill-served in a world full of massive and powerful empires who simply have pushed them around since the beginning of the 19th century.  One can almost hear the author saying that it's not fair, but it's also not fair to backload this book so that so much more detail is given to the vastly less enjoyable aspects of the history of the Scandinavian nations rather than the military and diplomatic and political history--minus the author's unfortunate politics--that are much more interesting.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

[Sean · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a very difficult read, and it is really challenging to build an understanding of context and chronology. The author jumps centuries back and forth carelessly, along with making vague references based on plausibility. There are not many significant Scandinavian history books in English, so this covers more than most. After reading this I walked away with maybe 20% of the book being useful.

The writing style was painful as well, requiring a frequent rereading to understand what the other was trying to convey. In English this is not a well written book, perhaps in another language it reads better.

I therefore, upon completion of aforementioned book believe as stated there was information provided that could be of use but as indicated in paragraph one, could not be for or against what as written conveyed. This is the style of the entire book.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before traveling to Denmark, I wanted to learn more about the region's history. This book provided a good overview, but was maddeningly short on detail in some periods. It was also a bit confusing at times as the author sometimes leaped from Denmark to Sweden to Norway. The fact that it was published in 1979 also means that there was no recent history, but that was okay with me. It was the early history that I was most curious about. The author covered this pretty well, but his real focus was on the 20th century - almost half the book. I do commend him for his coverage of many aspects of Scandinavian history - politics, military, culture and more.

[emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the preface Derry promises this book “is intended for readers who have little prior knowledge of Scandinavia,” but after reading I find that hard to believe. This would be a good book for somebody who is interested solely in the political history of these nations, because it hardly focused on cultural or social history at all. A great majority of this book discussed court politics— and, later, party politics— in a manner that was rather confusing and didn’t let you grasp onto one concept before moving to the next.

[Phillip Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Currently on a pause on this book at around 175pages in, its a difficult read but one I hope to get back to unlike a few DNF's this Year.

Its written in the 70s Socio-Economic style and its not always that clear with what's going on. Though there is plenty of information about the topic discussed.

One thing I will state at this point, there is very little regarding Iceland and Finland, its highly dominated by Swedish History. I could argue that there is even more relevance to English, Dutch and German Histories.

[Qing Wang · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a reasonable quick review of the five Scandinavian countries. Nevertheless, as I had very little knowledge about them prior to this reading, some facts and historic events narrated in the book didn't always make sense to me. Sometimes it also felt a little bit dazzling switching among several nations (most of the time three), though this arrangement might be resulted from the fact that their past and present are tightly interwoven.

[Laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reasonable overview of Fenno-Scandinavian history. I bought it with the understanding that it was suitable for someone with no substantial knowledge of the topic. Unfortunately, frequently events or people are alluded to without introduction, so I frequently found myself having to do additional research.

[Nicholas French · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the most dense comprehensive history text I have ever read. And given the fact it weaves 5, somewhat similar, country's history together in an effort to create a single narrative, I can't see how it could be done any other way. It provided me with the back ground information I sought and addition subjects to explore.

[Marcie J · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is meant for scholars, not tourists (this was on the tour company’s recommend reading list). Any lay person would quickly be overwhelmed by the wealth of detail and lack of maps. Could be a useful reference book. I would NOT characterize the book as a ‘concise account’ of the political, cultural, economic, and histories of the 5 countries covered.its encyclopedic!

[Jorgon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Within the limitations of its format and time of publication, this is an excellent, albeit sadly dated and necessarily brief account of the 5 Fennoscandian nations' histories. If you are limited to English language, this is one of the few sources of any worth available in any case.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compact and concise but detailed history where I learned a lot about an area of Europe that you don't often hear/read a lot of the history of past the Viking Ages. I'd say this starting point if you wanted to study this area, and the further reading list is useful.

[Seamus Enright · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's said that there were only 3 men who undertstood the Schlesvig-Holtein problem, one of whom was dead, one of whom was mad and one who had forgotten about it, but I think this author may have been the fourth.
There seems to be little about Scandinavian history that he didn't know about...this book covers everything from prehistoric times up until it's completion in the late 70's.
If I'd taken in even a quarter of it I'd be able to teach Scandinavians about their own history while visiting there, unfortunately it seems to be aimed more at historians than people with a casual interest in the region.
I did learn a great deal from it though...I still don't quite understand why the vikings adopted Christianity so willingly and how Sweden managed to become an industrial power-house so quickly...but maybe I just need to read it again more carefully.

[Becky Keeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally finished this 400+ page history of all the Scandinavian countries. There were no picture or graphs--I like history books with pictures and graph and boxes of original art by the people studied. Also, I wanted a little more cultural history of what life was like for the regular person. This book had such a broad topic that it mainly went with the political and kingly history. But I can't complain too much because there are few history books on these countries written in English, and this one was written 30 years ago, at that. I've learn a lot, though it was slow going. The monarch who united all the Scandinavian countries under one head was Queen Margaret during the 14th century--you go, girl!

[Eric]

This was from a History of Scandinavia class. My bookmark shows that I made it through most of the book. I don't remember it being a really compelling read, but it was about a part of the world I knew little about so that made it more interesting. Especially in combination with reading the Vinland sagas.

[André Sá Machado]

Bit boring...

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read, very informative, very complete

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written parallel study of 5 Scandinavian Countries emphasizing similarities despite unique paths.

[Kathee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish this book had had maps.