a brief history of Norway

by John Midgaard

Book by John Midgaard

Genres: History, Nonfiction

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

Reviews

[Skallagrimsen]

Details the history of Europe's northernmost nation in the broadest of strokes, taking the reader from murky pre-history to Viking-age barbarity to social democratic modernity in barely one hundred fifty pages. A good place to start for anyone interested in the subject.

On a personal level, this book is most important to me for piquing my first curiosity about the explorer, scientist, and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen, the most accomplished man in Norwegian history.

[Kaylee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in Norway from reading about the German invasion and the king's escape in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." Norway didn't fall apart with the invasion like most other countries. I picked this book off the shelf because (1) It was shorter than "A Short History of Norway" and (2) It had a greater emphasis on modern history. The last half of the book is written about the last 200 years.

A few complaints:
-This book is lacking a good map of Norway with the town names on it. Yanno, in case you want to know where Trondheim is in relation to Oslo.

-It occasionally got tedious, like listing how many seats each political party won and describing how the numbers fluctuated from year to year instead of describing changes in the political atmosphere.

-It contains some of the most creative typos and typesetting errors I have ever seen. For a ninth edition...ouch!

Generally though, it was easy to read and informative.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great little primer on Norwegian history up through WW2.

[Melissa Bond · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive summary of the history of Norway. Although time has passed considerably past the 1980's, the book does give insight into the reasons Norway is one of the wealthiest and most stable countries to date. Their resolve to remain neutral, to support free trade and use their resources to enrich their society mirrors other countries struggling to resolve reconstruction (the USA for example). It just goes to show that with cooperation with other countries, the unity of a nation no matter their political standing, and utilizing ones own rich resources, finding a way to clear a deficit and progress into a nation that is strong and stable is possible. Indeed something can be learned from the success of other countries.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't get to finish this because I had to return it to my college library without the option to renew unfortunately. I enjoyed learning about Norway, since the Scandinavian area isn't something that was covered in my regualar history classes except maybe briefly. I wished there was a better map in the book because I am not familiar with the geography of Norway.
I got to page 87.