Finland in Europe

by Matti Klinge

Suomen historian kokonaisesitys kattaa niin poliittisen historian kuin talous- ja kulttuurihistorian kehityslinjat. Teos valottaa historiallisten tapahtumien taustoja, maamme merkkihenkilöiden vaiheita ja Suomen viimeaikaisia ratkaisuja.

Kirjassa pohditaan kiinnostavasti mm. suomalaisten rotua, kieltä ja identiteettiä, talvisodan geopoliittista taustaa sekä maamme vaiheita Euroopan unionissa.

Emeritusprofessori Matti Klinge (s. 1936) on arvostettu historiantutkija, näkyvä yhteiskunnallinen keskustelija ja tuottelias kirjailija.

Lyhyt Suomen historia on päivitetty laitos hänen kirjastaan Suomi Euroopassa.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2004

Reviews

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short history of Finland by Finnish history professor Matti Klinge. He starts at the tail end of the ice age and finishes in the early twenty-first century, when Nokia was at its peak and Tarja Halonen was Finland’s first female president. The book provides a good review of Finnish history, with plenty of interesting illustrations. There is particular focus on the period when Finland was a Grand Duchy under the heel of the Russian Empire, and subsequently during the Cold War when Urho Kekkonen was president.

Easy to read, the three English translators did a sterling job on Klinge’s original text, with only a couple of minor grammatical errors creeping into the final copy. However, the narrative feels a little unbalanced. Of course, any history of Finland needs a close analysis of the Victorian era, when Finnish nationalism developed and finally culminated in Finnish independence in 1917. But in the postwar period of the mid-twentieth century, Klinge talks almost exclusively about long-serving president Urho Kekkoken, who managed the relationship with the Soviets for nearly 30 years. That’s important, but he deftly avoids Kekkonen’s many controversies and says very little about any other political figures who also played key roles up until the end of the century.

Published in 2003, the book feels quite anachronistic, with a two-page spread on “the Nokia success story”, which rapidly transformed into a failure story less than ten years later. It gives no comment on the new Russian president, who Europe was busy praising as the great reformer, with no inkling of what was to come. It presents two EU economic maps in French without any explanation as to why the publisher did not reprint them in English for an English-language history book.

But overall, this was an interesting read with an historical review, extra detail I didn’t know before and a nostalgic snapshot of the optimism in Europe at the turn of the millennium.

[Tuula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oikein hyvä pikakatsaus vuosisatojen läpi. Paljon elävöittäviä kuvia, jotka pilkkovat tekstiä.