Nordic Paths to Modernity

Johann Pall Arnason is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and Visiting Professor at Charles University, Prague. His research interests focus on comparative historical sociology, with particular emphasis on the comparative sociology of civilizations. Recent publications include: Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions (Brill 2003); Axial Civilizations and World History (co-editor, Brill 2005); and The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (co-editor, Blackwell 2010). Bjorn Wittrock is Principal of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS), Uppsala, and University Professor at Uppsala University. He has published extensively, currently eighteen books, in the fields of intellectual history, historical social science, social theory and civilizational analysis. Recent publications include: Frontiers of Sociology (co-editor, Brill 2009) and Eurasian Transformations, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries: Crystallizations, Divergences, Renaissances (co-editor, Brill 2004).

• Acknowledgements Introduction Johann Pall ArnasonandBjorn Wittrock Chapter 1. Nordic Modernity: Origins, Trajectories, Perspective Bo Strath Chapter 2. The Danish Path to Modernity Uffe Ostergard Chapter 3. Denmark 1740-1940: A Centralised Cultural Community Niels Kayser Nielsen Chapter 4. The Making of Sweden Bjorn Wittrock Chapter 5. History, Ethics and the Path to Modernity in Pre-Revolutionary Sweden Peter Hallberg Chapter 6. Shifting Knowledge Regimes: The Metamorphoses of Norwegian Reformism Rune Slagstad Chapter 7. Alternative Processes of Modernization? Gunnar Skirbekk Chapter 8. Nordic Modernity and Finnish Modernity: Similarities and Differences Risto Alapuro Chapter 9. The Finnish Grand Duchy and the Paradoxes of the Finnish Political Culture Henrik Stenius Chapter 10. Icelandic Anomalies Johann Pall Arnason Chapter 11. 'The Time Will Come': Icelandic Modernity and the Role of Nationalism Guomundur Halfdanarson Notes on Contributors

"The contributors to this volume are supremely well-qualified to explore these themes; most of them have spent long and distinguished careers researching these or similar questions - As one might expect, the book impresses above all with the weight of scholarship displayed here." * H-Soz-u-Kult " - the chapters are lucidly composed, and consequently pleasant to read - The introduction by the editors is very fine indeed - I find something compellingly interesting everywhere in the text. The combination of theory, conception and fact is quite gracefully handled. No heavy-footed jargon here." * Sheldon Rothblatt, University of California, Berkeley