Historisk tidskrift

Sverige och den tyska J-stämpeln: en transnationell historia

Pontus Rudberg, Olof Bortz — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Tennisblockaden i Båstad 1968

Martin Ericsson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Båstad tennis protest of 1968: Left-wing activism and right-wing counter-mobilisation

In the spring of 1968, Sweden was supposed to play a Davis Cup tennis match against Rhodesia, a quasi-apartheid state in southern Africa. The game was scheduled to be played on 3 May in the small town of Båstad in southern Sweden. However, hundreds of anti-racist activists gathered and stopped the game from starting. There were hours of confrontations with police (who used tear gas and a fire hose), making it the most violent protest in Sweden in 1968. Despite this, the Båstad tennis protest is seldom mentioned in historical narratives of the political radicalisation process in Sweden in the 1960s. In this article, the protest is analysed systematically for the first time, with a focus on the planning, how it was carried out, and its violent aftermath (several activists were attacked by local mobs). Not only is the protest analysed, but it is used to problematise traditional narratives about 1968.

Two key conclusions are drawn. First, the Båstad protest shows that Sweden in 1968 was more confrontational and violent than is often assumed. Not as violent as West Germany or France, but still, the Båstad protest does not tally with the general assumption that the radicalisation of Sweden was peaceful. Second, Sweden in 1968 not only was marked by left-wing activism; the right mobilised too, although this has been studied far less. In Båstad, the activists were harassed by violent mobs, and local right-wing leaders mobilised local opinion for restrictions on the democratic right of assembly and protest. This right-wing mobilisation was also a part of 1968 in Sweden and should be studied in more detail.

Totalförsvarets livspolitik

Fredrik Bertilsson, Camilla Eriksson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The life politics of total defence: Knowledge supply of Swedish food security and preparedness

In the Cold War, Sweden’s total defence extended to all parts of society. Preparations for war were a normal part of daily life. Military history has received more attention in historical research, but Sweden’s civil defence has recently attracted increasing interest.

This article sheds new light on the knowledge supply and political governance of the Swedish total defence. We focus on Swedish food security and preparedness (livsmedelsberedskap), which was part of the economic defences that fell under the country’s civil defence system. We examine governmental investigations into the changes in Swedish agricultural production deemed necessary to reach the Swedish government’s planned level of preparedness. Two forms of what we term ”life politics” are charted in the studies commissioned or carried out by the Swedish Board of Agriculture in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We examine how these investigations made possible political interventions targeting the human population as well as the life of plants and the cultivated land. We provide new perspectives on Sweden’s civil defence by studying the significance of non-human life forms to Swedish public preparedness, which have received significantly less attention from historians than the human population and the development of, for example, new defence technologies and weapon systems. We use the concept of life politics to chart the different meanings ascribed to different forms of life.

The article primarily contributes to the historical research on scientific advice in Sweden’s total defence, and to studies exploring the connections between the Swedish welfare state and Swedish defence planning.

Planer för en ny tillvaro

Gustav Berry — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Anu Lahtinen, Ebba Stenbock: I maktspelets skugga (Helsingfors: Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland och Appell Förlag 2022). 206 s.

Svante Norrhem — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Janne Kivivuori et al, Nordic homicide in deep time: Lethal violence in the early modern era and present times (Helsingfors: Helsinki University Press 2022). 358 s.

Roddy Nilsson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Maja Bondestam, De utomordentliga: Normaliseringen av monster och naturens utkant 1600–1830 (Göteborg & Stockholm: Makadam förlag 2022). 350 s.

Cecilia Trenter — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Christina Mattsson, Petter Winge och hans värld: En boktryckare, bokhandlare och utgivare i 1700-talets Nyköping (Karlstad: Votum, 2022). 80 + XVIII s.

Jonas Nordin — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Marianne Molander Beyer, Till eftervärlden: Clas Julius Ekeblad 1742–1808: Brev, dagböcker och reseskildringar berättar (Appell förlag 2022). 184 s.

Brita Planck — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Lars Ericson Wolke, Svenskar i krig för Danmark: 1848–1864 (Lund: Historiska Media 2022). 356 s.

Patrik Winton — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Svenbjörn Kilander, När tiden byttes ut: Norra Jämtland och industrialiseringsprocessen 1850–1906 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press 2021). 359 s.

Bo G. Hall — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Anders Ekström & Hampus Östh Gustafsson (red.), The Humanities and the Modern Politics of Knowledge: The Impact and Organization of the Humanities in Sweden, 1850–2020 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2022). 293 s.

Christer Nordlund — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Carl-Filip Smedberg, Klassriket: Socialgruppsindelningen som skillnadsteknologi under 1900-talet (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 2022). 82 s. + fyra delstudier.

Rebecka Dahlkvist — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Jakob Lindblad, Forskningsföretaget Sveriges Kyrkor: Organisation, Utgivning, Arkiv (Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien 2022). 288 s.

Lena Liepe — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Svante Hansson in memoriam

Lars M Andersson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Nytt om historisk forskning

redaktionssekreteraren — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Litteratur inkommen till redaktionen

redaktionssekreteraren — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Till kritiken

Anne Berg, Robin Ekelund — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Tjänst och vänskap under 1500-talet

Jan Samuelson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

1700-talet i den svenska historiekulturen

Samuel Edquist — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Den självstyrda periferin

Fay Lundh Nilsson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Försvarsforskningens reformteknokrater

Jenny Andersson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Framtid i smulor?

Jenny Andersson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Högerradikal historienationalism historiserad

Samuel Edquist — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Minne och flykt i unga människors berättade 2009–2021

Jesper Johansson — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000