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£14.99
Published
3 June 2025
Hardback
978-1-913083-97-7
Ebook
978-1-913083-98-4
Press Release
Coming soon.
By Mart Kuldkepp:

 

From the Stone Age to ‘Scandimania’ – an illuminating journey through 14,000 years of Nordic history

Outsiders have long viewed Scandinavia as special, from the ancient Greek myth of a place ‘where the Sun goes to rest’ to the admiration held today for the region’s universal welfare, equality and peacefulness. But the story of Scandinavia is also one of expansion and religious strife, of war and occupation, of famine and plague.

From the first peoples who followed the ice sheet north at the end of the last Ice Age to Viking expeditions, from Cold War bridge-building to ranking as the happiest nations in the world, Mart Kuldkepp masterfully charts the story of the wider Nordic region – from Finland in the East across to Iceland and Greenland in the West.

As formerly neutral Finland and Sweden join NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this timely history explores the region’s geopolitics, the origins of the welfare state and asks whether life in Scandinavia is quite as hygge as it might seem.

Old Street Publishing The Shortest History of Scandinavia

From the Stone Age to ‘Scandimania’ – an illuminating journey through 14,000 years of Nordic history

Outsiders have long viewed Scandinavia as special, from the ancient Greek myth of a place ‘where the Sun goes to rest’ to the admiration held today for the region’s universal welfare, equality and peacefulness. But the story of Scandinavia is also one of expansion and religious strife, of war and occupation, of famine and plague.

From the first peoples who followed the ice sheet north at the end of the last Ice Age to Viking expeditions, from Cold War bridge-building to ranking as the happiest nations in the world, Mart Kuldkepp masterfully charts the story of the wider Nordic region – from Finland in the East across to Iceland and Greenland in the West.

As formerly neutral Finland and Sweden join NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this timely history explores the region’s geopolitics, the origins of the welfare state and asks whether life in Scandinavia is quite as hygge as it might seem.

 14.99
 
 

‘A superbly clear, learned and wide-ranging history of the five Nordic nations… Kuldkepp identifies how all five countries remain social democratic policy beacons, while also giving due attention to their shortcomings’
—Andrew Scott, author of Northern Lights

 
 
  • ‘The perfect starting point for anyone interested in Scandinavian history… Mart
    Kuldkepp convincingly analyses the national developments of the Scandinavian countries and territories, from prehistoric times until today, as well as the shifting constellations and power dynamics between them, with a view to identifying what may be specifically Nordic’
    —Ruth Hemstad, author of The Danish-Norwegian Divorce, 1814
 
 
Mart Kuldkepp

MART KULDKEPP is a professor and researcher of Estonian and Nordic history at University College London, where he specialises in the political history of the Baltic and Nordic regions in the twentieth century.