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The road across the sea
For over six centuries, Sweden and Finland were one and the same realm. This volume highlights the enduring connections between the central areas of both countries by exploring the interactions between Uppsala, Stockholm and Turku, particularly from the perspectives of urban mobility and the flows of knowledge, goods and people.
The authors examine Turku as one of the key university towns in the early-modern Swedish realm and as a centre of administration and trade in its heartland, with strong links to the rest of Europe and the world. By emphasising the ties between Turku and other cities as well as the connections between academia and various other spheres of life in Sweden, the volume offers a fresh perspective on the intellectual, cultural and social history of the university. Key themes include the experiences of students and scholars in university towns, the relationships between the bourgeoisie and the academic community, intellectual networks and the cultural expressions of urban life.
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Democracy is today a concept that is overwhelmingly positively evaluated almost everywhere. A lot has been written about socio-economic and cultural backgrounds of democratic regimes as well as their institutional settings. By contrast, not much is known about the political manoeuvres and speech acts by which 'democracy' has been tied to particular regions and cultures in concrete historical situations.
This book discusses a series of efforts to rhetorically produce a particular Nordic version of democracy. It shows that the rhetorical figure 'Nordic democracy' was a product of the age of totalitarianism and the Cold War. It explores the ways in which 'Nordic democracy' was used, mainly by the social democrats, to provide the welfare politics with cultural and historical legitimacy and foundations. Thus, it also acknowledges the ideological and geopolitical context in which the 'Nordic welfare state' was conceptualised and canonised.
The contributors of the book are specialists on Nordic politics and history, who share a particular interest in political rhetoric and conceptual history.
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