1st Edition

Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World Provincial Cosmopolitans

By Göran Rydén Copyright 2013

    Eighteenth-century Sweden was deeply involved in the process of globalisation: ships leaving Sweden’s central ports exported bar iron that would drive the Industrial Revolution, whilst arriving ships would bring not only exotic goods and commodities to Swedish consumers, but also new ideas and cultural practices with them. At the same time, Sweden was an agricultural country to a large extent governed by self-subsistence, and - for most - wealth was created within this structure. This volume brings together a group of scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds who seek to present a more nuanced and elaborated picture of the Swedish cosmopolitan eighteenth century. Together they paint a picture of Sweden that is more like the one eighteenth-century intellectuals imagined, and help to situate Sweden in histories of cosmopolitanism of the wider world.

    1: Provincial Cosmopolitanism: An Introduction; 2: Where in the World was Sweden? A Brief Guide for Foreigners; Language; 3: The Language of Cosmos: The Cosmopolitan Endeavour of Universal Languages; Cultivation; 4: Swedish Agriculture in the Cosmopolitan Eighteenth Century; Taste; 5: Travelling and the Formation of Taste: The European Journey of Bengt Ferrner and Jean Lefebure 1758–1763; Liberty; 6: Eskilstuna Fristad: The Beginnings of an Urban Experiment; Image; 7: Prints and Attraction in Eighteenth-Century Stockholm; Faith; 8: In Defence of Freedom: Christianity and the Pursuit of Human Happiness in Anders Chydenius' World; Peace; 9: Sweden's Neutrality and the Eighteenth-Century Inter-State System; Colour; 10: Runaway Colours: Recognisability and Categorisation in Sweden and Early America, 1750–1820; Manners; 11: When Sweden Harboured Idlers: Gender and Luxury in Public Debates, c. 1760–1830; Slavery; 12: A Divided Space: Subjects and Others in the Swedish West Indies during the late-Eighteenth Century; Compassion; 13: A World of Fiction: Bengt Lidner and Global Compassion in Eighteenth-Century Sweden; 14: Sveaborg and the End of the Swedish Cosmopolitan Eighteenth Century: An Epilogue

    Biography

    Göran Rydén is Professor of Economic History at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University, Sweden.

    ’The diversity of areas covered means that the reader receives a lot of interesting and useful information. The authors also show that individuals and institutions in Sweden were affected by international circumstances... emphasis on the importance of international ties for Swedish developments in the eighteenth century makes the book an important contribution to the ongoing discussion about globalization in the early modern world.’ Economic History Review