Scandinavian Mentality

Scandinavian Mentality

Author: Lucas Nguyen

Publisher: Publifye AS

Published: 2024-10-25

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 8233934844

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""Scandinavian Mentality"" delves into the distinctive social and communicative patterns that characterize Nordic societies, offering a fascinating exploration of how cultural values shape behavior across Scandinavian countries. The book centers on three fundamental aspects: lagom (the principle of moderation), the law of Jante (emphasizing collective well-being over individual success), and unique social distance norms that define personal interactions. Through a research-based approach spanning five decades of sociological studies, the book illuminates how historical factors, Lutheran influences, and geographical isolation have molded modern Scandinavian communication patterns. The text progresses thoughtfully from historical foundations to contemporary applications, examining how these cultural elements manifest in professional, personal, and public spaces. A particularly intriguing aspect is the apparent paradox in Scandinavian behavior: while strongly valuing social equality and community welfare, individuals maintain significant personal distance in daily interactions. This unique combination of collectivist values and personal space requirements creates a distinctive social dynamic that sets Scandinavian cultures apart. Drawing from extensive research across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the book bridges theoretical understanding with practical application, making it valuable for both academic study and real-world cultural navigation. It examines how these behavioral patterns adapt to modern challenges while maintaining their core characteristics, offering readers concrete strategies for understanding and engaging with Scandinavian social contexts. The interdisciplinary approach, combining social psychology, cultural anthropology, and communication studies, provides a comprehensive framework for understanding these unique cultural dynamics.


Swedish Mentality

Swedish Mentality

Author: Åke Daun

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 1996-01-05

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 0271041501

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Is there a distinctly Swedish national character? Are Swedes truly shy, unemotional, conflict-avoiding, melancholy, and dour? Swedish Mentality, the English translation of the hugely successful book published in Sweden in 1989, considers the reality behind the myth. The author, Åke Daun, is a respected ethnologist who is sometimes referred to as the "guru" of Swedish character. In recent years, it has become popular to discuss Swedishness and Swedish identity. The advent of the European Union and the increasing presence of immigrant refugees in Sweden have fueled public debate on the distinctiveness of Swedish culture. Daun, however, goes beyond stereotype, drawing upon statistics gathered over more than a decade of research. The result is an entertaining and engagingly written book. Throughout, Daun quotes from interviews with native Swedes and immigrants as well as from travel accounts, folklore, and proverbs. We learn why some Swedes might prefer to walk up a flight of stairs rather than share an elevator with a neighbor and why some gain satisfaction from walking alone in the woods or going fishing. Daun describes a range of factors influencing Swedish character, including population composition, rural background, and even climate. He recognizes behavioral variations related to gender, age, class, and region, and he considers subtleties of individual character as well. Swedish Mentality should interest a wide array of readers, whether of Swedish descent or not.


The Almost Nearly Perfect People

The Almost Nearly Perfect People

Author: Michael Booth

Publisher: Picador

Published: 2015-01-27

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1250061970

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The Christian Science Monitor's #1 Best Book of the Year A witty, informative, and popular travelogue about the Scandinavian countries and how they may not be as happy or as perfect as we assume, “The Almost Nearly Perfect People offers up the ideal mixture of intriguing and revealing facts” (Laura Miller, Salon). Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than ten years, and he has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely book he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success, and, most intriguing of all, what they think of one another. Why are the Danes so happy, despite having the highest taxes? Do the Finns really have the best education system? Are the Icelanders as feral as they sometimes appear? How are the Norwegians spending their fantastic oil wealth? And why do all of them hate the Swedes? In The Almost Nearly Perfect People Michael Booth explains who the Scandinavians are, how they differ and why, and what their quirks and foibles are, and he explores why these societies have become so successful and models for the world. Along the way a more nuanced, often darker picture emerges of a region plagued by taboos, characterized by suffocating parochialism, and populated by extremists of various shades. They may very well be almost nearly perfect, but it isn’t easy being Scandinavian.


Swedish Mentality

Swedish Mentality

Author: Åke Daun

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 1996-01-12

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0271071915

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Is there a distinctly Swedish national character? Are Swedes truly shy, unemotional, conflict-avoiding, melancholy, and dour? Swedish Mentality, the English translation of the hugely successful book published in Sweden in 1989, considers the reality behind the myth. The author, Åke Daun, is a respected ethnologist who is sometimes referred to as the "guru" of Swedish character. In recent years, it has become popular to discuss Swedishness and Swedish identity. The advent of the European Union and the increasing presence of immigrant refugees in Sweden have fueled public debate on the distinctiveness of Swedish culture. Daun, however, goes beyond stereotype, drawing upon statistics gathered over more than a decade of research. The result is an entertaining and engagingly written book. Throughout, Daun quotes from interviews with native Swedes and immigrants as well as from travel accounts, folklore, and proverbs. We learn why some Swedes might prefer to walk up a flight of stairs rather than share an elevator with a neighbor and why some gain satisfaction from walking alone in the woods or going fishing. Daun describes a range of factors influencing Swedish character, including population composition, rural background, and even climate. He recognizes behavioral variations related to gender, age, class, and region, and he considers subtleties of individual character as well. Swedish Mentality should interest a wide array of readers, whether of Swedish descent or not.


The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning

Author: Margareta Magnusson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-01-02

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1501173251

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*The basis for the wonderfully funny and moving TV series developed by Amy Poehler and Scout Productions* A charming, practical, and unsentimental approach to putting a home in order while reflecting on the tiny joys that make up a long life. In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning, dö meaning “death” and städning meaning “cleaning.” This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner than later, before others have to do it for you. In The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, artist Margareta Magnusson, with Scandinavian humor and wisdom, instructs readers to embrace minimalism. Her radical and joyous method for putting things in order helps families broach sensitive conversations, and makes the process uplifting rather than overwhelming. Margareta suggests which possessions you can easily get rid of (unworn clothes, unwanted presents, more plates than you’d ever use) and which you might want to keep (photographs, love letters, a few of your children’s art projects). Digging into her late husband’s tool shed, and her own secret drawer of vices, Margareta introduces an element of fun to a potentially daunting task. Along the way readers get a glimpse into her life in Sweden, and also become more comfortable with the idea of letting go.


Introduction to Nordic Cultures

Introduction to Nordic Cultures

Author: Annika Lindskog

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2020-04-17

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1787353990

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Introduction to Nordic Cultures is an innovative, interdisciplinary introduction to Nordic history, cultures and societies from medieval times to today. The textbook spans the whole Nordic region, covering historical periods from the Viking Age to modern society, and engages with a range of subjects: from runic inscriptions on iron rings and stone monuments, via eighteenth-century scientists, Ibsen’s dramas and turn-of-the-century travel, to twentieth-century health films and the welfare state, nature ideology, Greenlandic literature, Nordic Noir, migration, ‘new’ Scandinavians, and stereotypes of the Nordic. The chapters provide fundamental knowledge and insights into the history and structures of Nordic societies, while constructing critical analyses around specific case studies that help build an informed picture of how societies grow and of the interplay between history, politics, culture, geography and people. Introduction to Nordic Cultures is a tool for understanding issues related to the Nordic region as a whole, offering the reader engaging and stimulating ways of discovering a variety of cultural expressions, historical developments and local preoccupations. The textbook is a valuable resource for undergraduate students of Scandinavian and Nordic studies, as well as students of European history, culture, literature and linguistics.


The Story of Scandinavia

The Story of Scandinavia

Author: Stein Ringen

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2023-09-14

Total Pages: 519

ISBN-13: 1474625223

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In The Story of Scandinavia, political scholar Stein Ringen chronicles more than 1,200 years of drama, economic rise and fall, crises, kings and queens, war, peace, language and culture. Scandinavian history has been one of dramatic discontinuities of collapse and restarts, from the Viking Age to the Age of Perpetual War to the modern age today. For a thousand years, the Scandinavian countries were kingdoms of repression where monarchs played at the game of being European powers, at the expense of their own populations. The brand we now know as "Scandinavia" is a recent invention. During most of its history, Denmark and Sweden, and to some degree Norway, were bloody enemies. These sentiments of enmity have not been fully settled. Under the surface of collaboration remain undercurrents of hatred, envy, contempt and pity. What does it mean today to be Scandinavian? For the author, whose identity is Scandinavian but his life European, this masterly history is a personal exploration as well as a narrative of compelling scope.


Nationalism and the Nordic Imagination

Nationalism and the Nordic Imagination

Author: Michelle Facos

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1998-04-10

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780520206267

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Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Michelle Facos links the social and cultural dynamics in turn-of-the-century Sweden to the discourses of primitivism, nationalism, and symbolism. In the process, she sheds new light on a major area of study, the manifestation of modernism in Sweden. These painters - among them Carl Larsson, Anders Zorn, Bruno Liljefors, and Prince Eugen - sought to produce a specifically national Swedish art. They focused on indigenous history, legends, and folk tales as well as customs, values, geography, and ethnography - anything they perceived as uniquely or typically Swedish. Politically progressive and culturally conservative, the National Romantic artists protested against the dangers they perceived in capitalist industrialism and urban expansion and promoted an egalitarian ideology centered on the Swedish/Nordic native culture.


Norwegians and Swedes in the United States

Norwegians and Swedes in the United States

Author: Philip J. Anderson

Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 0873518411

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Eighteen essays explore interactions among Swedish and Norwegian immigrants to America, focusing on themes of friendship and competition through the lenses of identity, language, religion, and politics.


People of the Northern Seas

People of the Northern Seas

Author: Lewis R. Fischer

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2017-10-18

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1786949326

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This volume aims to continue the expansion of maritime history beyond the narrow definition - ‘the study of ships’ - to include all people involved in seagoing activities. The volume consists of eleven articles exploring the people of Northern seas, spanning the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and primarily focused on Europe. They were originally presented at a 1992 Finland conference of the Association for the History of the Northern Seas. The articles are broad in scope, and are collected here with the intention of stimulating further academic research into the lives and histories of the people of the Northern seas, which the editors, at the time of publication, consider under-examined. The articles are divided into three sections, the first examining livelihoods dependant on the ocean; seamen, fishermen. The second group examines maritime mercantile communities; merchants; shipowners; shipbrokers. The final group examines maritime culture, encompassing the navy and the coastguard.