Swedish History in Outline

by Jörgen Weibull

1997 SVENSKA INSTITUTET HARDCOVER

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Sweden

162 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1993

Reviews

[Sleepless Dreamer]

I have about zero knowledge about Sweden's history so I bought this book because it seemed like it could give me a solid introduction.

It's definitely a good book in that sense. I'm finishing this book with a vague sense of what happened. This book tries to cram so much history into its 162 pages and I think it does a solid job. That said, I wish I could have gotten a zoom out. I don't care about specific battles and I'd much rather get an explanation like "and then Sweden took over Poland" than a mess of names and battles.

I was able to follow it and I'm happy because now I know more of what interests me. I'd love to find a book about Finnish history (like gosh, I feel so bad for them, Sweden pretty much occupied then forever and then abandoned them during the wars) and a book explaining what is the Germany- Sweden relationship cause, wow, they share history. Generally, I'm looking for something explaining more about Sweden's foreign policy. So I'm happy because without this book, I wouldn't have been able to narrow my interests down.

This book was very pro Sweden which is cool. I mean, I liked how proud the author was of Sweden. That said, some critical views would be nice (I am so Israeli, dammit).

I haven't read enough to compare this book to other books that attempt to do the same so I can't recommend anything.

things I'm taking with me
• Practically everyone is named Nils/ Eric/ Karl.
• I understand so much more about how Sweden is the way it is, from their amazing lifestyle level to how they work with the UN and EU.
• The way Norway got their independence is kind of inspirational like wow, I want to have something I believe in so much I fight for it for like 300 years. And wow, Sweden, taking over Norway was such a dick move.
• So much Swedish history is pretty much fighting Denmark for the sea and going into poverty, getting rich again, and getting into more wars.

[Thieluar]

Finally finished reading this short book. It's a good start to comprehend what has happened in Sweden if you are not much into reading a lot, but have in mind that this book was prepared by someone with close ties to the Swedish government, so wanting to portray the best of his country, he might omit a few things.

[Victoria]

It's not too bad to get a brief history of Sweden, but I felt that there was a bit too much emphasis on dates and listing every tiny battle.