Scandinavians: In Search of the Soul of the North

Written by Robert Ferguson

Narrated by Michael Page

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 is 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jun 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781541475557

Robert Ferguson

Robert Ferguson was born in the UK in 1948 and left school in 1966. He worked at a number of jobs including postman, hospital porter, deckhand on a trawler, factory worker, cook, driver etc before enrolling at UCL, London in 1976 and taking a course in Scandinavian Studies. He graduated in 1980. In 1983 he emigrated to Norway and has made his home there since. He began his literary career as a radio dramatist, translating and adapting for radio works by Knut Hamsun and Henrik Ibsen for the BBC. He has also written eleven original radio plays and twice won the BBC Methuen Giles Cooper Award for Best Radio Drama, in 1984 and 1986. His first literary biography was Enigma: The Life of Knut Hamsun, which was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Best Biography Award in 1987. It also won the University of London J.G.Robertson Award. In 1996 Enigma was dramatized as a 6-part television series by NRK (Norwegian State Television) As well as literary biographies and a history of the Vikings, Ferguson has written two novels, published only in Norwegian.

Reviews for Scandinavians

[emresevinc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this very personal account of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark written by an "outsider" who maybe shouldn't be considered an outsider after anymore, having spent more than 30 years in Norway, and became so much involved with Scandinavian literature and history.This is not a very didactic book, following a strict pattern with the aim of guiding the reader like a student on history and culture of Nordic lands. The book is rather like an old friend buying you a beer, or aquavit in this case, and telling you personal stories, literary anecdotes, strange encounters with famous figures from the world of theater and cinema. The writing is fluid, but the author can easily deviate from a topic, only to jump to another anecdote, only to return the original theme some pages later. This is the beauty and curse of it! One thing is certain: After having read this book, I know more about various aspects of Scandinavian culture, history and literature; and I'm motivated to learn much more. Hence, I consider this book a success, but I'm not sure I can recommend to everyone.

[santhony_35 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I picked up this book at Barnes and Noble after browsing for about 15 minutes. The subject looked intriguing, as I love history, am curious about Scandinavia and have very little background on the subject. After reading the entire book, I am still curious and still have very little background.I must say that I have seldom encountered a book so poorly organized. I fact, I would have to say that it is not organized, at all. There are about 20 chapters about various aspects of Scandinavian life, history and/or culture, with seemingly no structure or connection. It is almost like an anthology, or collection of essays written by different people, except the author makes almost every chapter more about himself than the subject.I didn’t buy this book to read about the author’s life, his friends, the lives of his friends, or his philosophy, yet that is predominantly what I got. Scattered throughout the book are nuggets of helpful and/or entertaining information, but they are widely scattered.