SCAS News - 27 June, 2016
New Book by SCAS Pro Futura Scientia Fellow Johan Östling
Sweden after Nazism: Politics and Culture in the Wake of the Second World War (2016), written by
SCAS Pro Futura Scientia Fellow Johan Östling, has recently been published by Berghahn Books.
The book is a translation into English of Östling's doctoral dissertation (Nazismens
sensmoral:
Svenska erfarenheter i andra världskrigets efterdyning, 2008). The revisions necessary for the
new, translated edition of the book were to a large extent carried out during Östling's time in residence
at the Collegium in the spring semester of 2013.
Johan Östling is Associate Professor of History at Lund University. He was admitted to the Pro Futura
Scientia
programme in 2011. In addition to the spring of 2013, he was also in residence at SCAS in the
autumn
of 2014.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
'As a nominally neutral power during the Second World War, Sweden in the early postwar era has
received comparatively little attention from historians. Nonetheless, as this definitive study shows,
the war—and particularly the specter of Nazism—changed Swedish society profoundly. Prior to
1939, many Swedes shared an unmistakable affinity for German culture, and even after the outbreak
of hostilities there remained prominent apologists for the Third Reich. After the Allied victory, however,
Swedish intellectuals reframed Nazism as a discredited, distinctively German phenomenon rooted in
militarism and Romanticism. Accordingly, Swedes’ self-conception underwent a dramatic reformulation.
From this interplay of suppressed traditions and bright dreams for the future, postwar Sweden emerged.'
