Darkening Scandinavia attempts to reveal, in a philosophical and poetical key, the profound and unique existential, aesthetic and phenomenological intuitions to which the metal bands Lake of Tears, from Sweden, and Burzum, from Norway, the visionary Danish cinematic team consisting of the director Nicolas Winding Refn and the actor Mads Mikkelsen, and the charmingly-evasive Norwegian writer Per Petterson, have managed to give deeply-moving dark expressions. The book is a post-modern Heideggerian meditation on what could constitute the true nature of the Northern Darkness – written with a capital D – and on the incredibly visceral prevalence of the primordial Void in the Nordic soulscapes, a propensity signalled by means of phantasmagorical and allegorical projections. The author of the these four essays assumes the role of not only an interpreter, but also as a continuator of the philosophical messages, of the phenomenological intuitions and of the aesthetic catalysts present in the texts of the four analyzed subjects. By addressing in an academic, inter- and trans-disciplinary ahistorical manner some of today’s mysterious canonic niches, the book cultivates a healthy intellectual curiosity and a special sense of theoretical escapism.

This volume deals with the strategies of the Counter-Reformation in the far North during the Thirty Years' War, and untangles the policies and motives that led to the conversion of Queen Christina of Sweden to Roman Catholicism in 1965.

This 1905 book presents an account of the development of the Scandinavian nations and their relationship with the rest of Europe. The text covers the major events in the histories of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, beginning with the reign of Christian II of Denmark and moving up to the time of publication.

An updated edition of the definitive history of Scandinavia over the past five centuries Despite certain distinctions and differences, the lands of Scandinavia, or Norden—Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, and the Faroe Islands—are united by bonds of culture, language, and geography, and by a shared history that comes richly to life in this landmark work. Now in an expanded, updated edition, this authoritative chronicle of five centuries of Scandinavian history incorporates the geopolitical developments and momentous events that have marked the Nordic world in recent decades. Scandinavia since 1500 situates the region’s political history within the traditional European chronology—in which the long “modern” period is subdivided into the Renaissance, early modern, modern, and contemporary. Within this framework, Byron J. Nordstrom traces the various ways in which economic, social, and cultural ideas and practices have come to Scandinavia from abroad, only to be modified and recast in a uniquely Nordic character. Long-unquestioned national mythologies come under Nordstrom's scrutiny, along with historical blind spots and erasures, as he ranges from canonical figures like Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and Christian IV of Denmark to the constitutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the resistance movements in World War II, and the Scandinavian welfare states, literary culture, and modern design. Expanded to include the nature and realities of the increasingly postindustrial economies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—including environmental concerns, integration with Europe, globalization, and immigration—Scandinavia since 1500 offers a comprehensive yet nuanced portrait of this unique region in all its political, diplomatic, social, economic, and cultural complexity. Cover alt text: Bold white title and author name across breathtaking snowy landscape of sun-touched cliffs beside a waterway and scattering of homes.

The volume "Environmental Ethics: Cross-cultural Explorations" places cross-cultural study at the center of inquiry. The cross-culturally rich explorations collected in this volume seek to critically examine some theoretical assumptions driving current debates in the field like anthropocentrism, individualism etc. In addition, they also endeavor to develop an integrative approach which can better channel ways in which current global challenges to the environment can be met.