The Shortest History of Scandinavia: From Vikings to the Cold War and the New Nordic Movement

nOutsiders have long viewed Scandinavia as special, starting with the ancient Greeks and their myths of Ultima Thule, a place where the Sun goes to rest. Today, we admire Scandinavia for its universal welfare, equality, peacefulness, and untouched nature--not to mention its interior design, crime literature, and love of all things hygge.n nYet Nordic history has its hardships and dark periods, too: pandemics, war, the expansionism of the Viking Age and the eighteenth century, alliances with Nazi Germany in World War II, and (as elsewhere) a eugenics movement in the twentieth century.n nIn The Shortest History of Scandinavia, historian Mart Kuldkepp masterfully sketches the outlines of Scandinavia's rich history--from the first known peoples of the region, who followed the ice sheet north as it retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, to the Scandinavians living in nations that are among the happiest in the world today.n nIn this short but deeply insightful volume, Kuldkepp illuminates the concept of Nordicness--a hard-to-define quality that has nonetheless steered the region to respond to major challenges, actively shaping their history and exerting a considerable influence on European and global history in the process.n