Robert Ferguson is an award-winning writer, translator, and radio dramatist. He is the author of numerous books, including The Vikings: A
History, Henrik Ibsen: A New
Biography, and Enigma: The Life of
Knut Hamsun, nominated for the Los
Angeles Times Best Biography Award and winner of the University of London
J.G. Robertson Award. Born in the UK in 1948, he emigrated to Norway in 1983
and has made his home there since.
Scandinavians: In Search of the Soul of the North
Paperback
$18.95
- ISBN-13: 9781468316674
- Publisher: Overlook Press, The
- Publication date: 09/25/2018
- Pages: 480
- Sales rank: 210,905
- Product dimensions: 5.38(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.00(d)
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A journey of discovery though two millennia of Scandinavia’s history, culture and society, "told with deep knowledge and an intoxicating passion" (BBC).Scandinavia is the epitome of cool: we fill our homes with Nordic furniture; we envy their humane social welfare system and their healthy outdoor lifestyle; we glut ourselves on their crime fiction; even their strangely attractive melancholia seems to express a stoic, commonsensical acceptance of life’s vicissitudes. But how valid is this outsider’s view of Scandinavia, and how accurate our picture of life in Scandinavia today?Scandinavians follows a chronological progression across the Northern centuries: the Vendel era of Swedish prehistory; the age of the Vikings; the Christian conversions of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland; the unified Scandinavian state of the late Middle Ages; the sea-change of the Reformation; the kingdom of Denmark-Norway; King Gustav Adolphus and the age of Sweden’s greatness; the cultural golden age of Ibsen, Strindberg and Munch; the impact of the Second World War; Scandinavia’s postwar social democratic nirvana; and the terror attacks of Anders Behring Breivik.Scandinavians is also a personal investigation, with award-winning author Robert Ferguson as the ideal companion as he explores wide-ranging topics such as the power and mystique of Scandinavian women, from the Valkyries to the Vikings; from Nora and Hedda to Garbo and Bergman. This digressive technique is familiar from the writings of W. G. Sebald, and in Ferguson’s hands it is deployed with particular felicity, accessibility, and deftness, richly illuminating our understanding of modern Scandinavia, its society, politics, culture, and temperament.
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The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
A delightfully free-roaming exploration of the myth of the brooding Scandinavian. This isn’t the book to read for glowing paeans to parental leave or foraging chefs; instead, it’s a rarer offering: an engaging, layered look into a complex culture.The Wall Street Journal
Robert Ferguson’sScandinaviansis not a book for the beach, but it might well fit the bill on a distant northern shore, with the fog rolling in and memories of long ships stirring . . . beautifully written, it presents a historical narrative punctuated by reminiscences, conversations retold, snatches of autobiography, fragments of biography and stories. ”Associated Press Staff
A delightful book chock-full of surprises, fascinating anecdotes and insights into the region’s rich history and culture.The Norwegian American
[An] enormously entertaining, fact-jammed . . . enthralling read . . . For this, Ferguson deserves a medal or two.Booklist (starred review)
Ferguson’s stroll through more than one thousand years of Scandinavian history offers an enchanting glimpse into the region’s political, economic, social, and cultural past.BBC
Told with deep knowledge and intoxicating passion.Liv Ullman
There can be few outsiders who know as much about the Scandinavians as Robert Ferguson.Sir Richard Eyre
Scandinavians is essential reading.”Max Adams
Ferguson’s prose has the crisp, deliberate crunch of footsteps on gravel; you can’t tell if he’s taking you to a Lutheran funeral or to Hamlet at the theatre.”Times Literary Supplement
Denmark,Norway, and Sweden must by several measures be the richest, happiest, and most successful societies the world has ever known; yet their inhabitants are famous for
melancholy . .
. Scandinavia is famous for hedonism and sexual freedom; yet the plots of
Scandi noir stories often turn not on crimes but on old sins: adultery, incest,
abuse. What causes these extreme clashes of light and darkness? Robert Ferguson tries to get to the bottom of it through a combination of personal memoir,
literary and cultural analysis, and episodic history. . . . Ferguson has brought them all back to life, and very engagingly so.