Bringing the People Back In: State Building from Below in the Nordic Countries ca. 1500-1800

The formation of states in early modern Europe has long been an important topic for historical analysis. Traditionally, the political and military struggles of kings and rulers were the favoured object of study for academic historians. This book highlights new historical research from Europe’s northern frontier, bringing ‘the people’ back into the discussion of state politics, presenting alternative views of political and social relations in the Nordic countries before industrialisation. The early modern period was a time that witnessed initiatives from people from many groups formally excluded from political influence, operating outside the structures of central government, and this book returns to the subject of contentious politics and state building from below.

Knut Dørum is a Professor of History at the University of Agder and at the University of Bergen in Norway. His recent research interests touch upon political and social history from below in the period c. 1750–2018. He has published extensively nationally and internationally on urban history, political culture, democratisation, state building, and female entrepreneurship.

Mats Hallenberg is a Professor of History at Stockholm University. He has studied political conflicts over public services in Stockholm, as well as state formation and peasant protest in early modern Sweden and Finland. He is currently working on a comparative study of regime shifts c. 1500–1800 and their long-time effects on Swedish politics.

Kimmo Katajala is a Professor of History at the Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland. The main topics in his publications are social disturbances, history of borders, cartography, and state building in the early modern period. In his ongoing projects, he is studying the history in cartography and historical memory.