Identity, Interest and Action: A Cultural Explanation of Sweden's Intervention in the Thirty Years War

Cambridge Cultural Social Studies

by Erik Ringmar

This book offers an original combination of cultural and narratological analysis with an empirical study of identity and political action. A powerful critique of rational choice theory, it also provides a solution to the historiographical puzzle of why Sweden intervened in The Thirty Years' War. Arguing that people act for reasons of identity, more fundamental than reasons of interest, Erik Ringmar shows the Swedish intervention to have been an attempt on behalf of Swedish leaders to gain recognition for themselves and their country.

252 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 1996

Reviews

[Turgut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly influential book!

Some snippets:

1) "A war will protect our selves and our way of life, and as long as we identify ourselves with our community, it may be worth fighting for it regardless of the costs involved. If we do not fight we can no longer be who we are, and if this happens we might as well be dead."

2) "People whose identities are never put on the line can never entirely understand the actions of people whose selves are."

Good book. Involves philosophy about what identity is, what is meaning, what is history etc. Read it to enrich your thinking..