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Título: A HISTORY OF SCANDINAVIA. NORWAY, SWEDEN, DENMARK AND FINLAND
Autor: DERRY, T. K.
Año: 1980
Género: HISTORIA Y MITOLOGÍA
Formato: PDF

This concise account traces the history of the Scandinavian countries from earliest times to the present, emphasizing common features in their heritage and in their contributions to the modern world. While most historians of Scandinavia have confined their attention to a single country, T. K. Derry has a two-fold aim. He studies each country's history, traditions, and way of life, but he also examines the political development of the five separate peoples in the context of the unity of the whole Nordic region. He covers fully the dramatic early history of the Scandinavian countries; half of his book, however, is devoted to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Scandinavians first made their impact on the outside world together, of course, as Vikings. In the later Middle Ages they joined to form the second most extensive state in Europe, and although the Union of Kalmar collapsed in 1523, the idea of recreating such a unity was revived on various occasions, even as late as the 1860s. In our own time, each of these five nations is known for the assertion of its political independence, but their social cohesion is attested strikingly by the establishment and growth of the Nordic Council, which celebrated its silver jubilee in 1977.

Derry's narrative makes an ideal introduction to the subject for the general reader or the student. He emphasizes not only each country's inheritance from the past but also its cultural and industrial development and social growth. Indeed, a part of Europe that was once regarded as "the unknown North" has now come to represent, as its distinctive contribution to the modern world, the very ideas and ideals of democracy, humanitarianism, and social equality.

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