A History of the Swedish People: Volume II

Volume II

2005
Author:

Vilhelm Moberg
Translated by Paul Britten Austin

A revealing and entertaining account of Sweden’s past

In the second volume of his vivid history of the Swedes, Vilhelm Moberg brings his focus on the common people to bear on a period that included two dramatic revolts: the national insurrection under Engelbrekt and the last desperate attempt of the Småland peasantry to retain their medieval liberties—a defiance bloodily crushed by King Gustav Vasa.

‘The history of Sweden is the history of her commons’—such is the motto and theme of this highly personal history of Sweden by its best-selling novelist.

Library Journal

In the second volume of his vivid history of the Swedes, Vilhelm Moberg brings his focus on the common people to bear on a period that included two dramatic revolts: the national insurrection under Engelbrekt and the last desperate attempt of the Småland peasantry to retain their medieval liberties—a defiance bloodily crushed by King Gustav Vasa. Using a wide variety of local historical source materials, Moberg studies the ruthless monarch Vasa and his two tragic opponents: the psychopathic Christian II of Denmark and Nils Dracke, the leader of the Smålanders. Furthermore, he examines the enigmatic and wide appeal of the Swedish forest and investigates the origins of the Swedish hatred of Danes, which was implanted by propaganda through songs commissioned by Karl VIII’s chancellery.

Vilhelm Moberg (1898–1972) was one of Sweden’s greatest writers of the twentieth century and is well known for his remarkable The Emigrants (1949), a four-volume epic of Swedish immigration to America.

Paul Britten Austin is a translator and historian.

‘The history of Sweden is the history of her commons’—such is the motto and theme of this highly personal history of Sweden by its best-selling novelist.

Library Journal