SCAS News - 11 July, 2024 (Updated: 16 August, 2024)

Fredrik Logevall's Wittrock Lecture on the Challenging Relationship Between Biography
and History Now Available in Print

In February 2023, the 5th SCAS Wittrock Lecture was held by Professor Fredrik Logevall in front
of a large audience both in the Collegium's Thunberg Hall and online. Now the lecture, Writing a
Political Life: On the Challenging Relationship Between Biography and History, is availble in print.

Abstract:
"The relationship between biography and history is complex. No attempt at a “life and times” study
can offer the full person or the full society; instead, the work must strive to illuminate the point at
which they overlap. This requires difficult choices, requires balancing agency and structure at every
stage of the process and taking care to not let the context overwhelm the individual life. For the
political biographer, there are additional challenges, concerning the nature of power and how to
assess it. To what extent do leaders make history, and to what extent are they constrained by time
and space, by circumstances beyond their control? And how to write political biography that does
not distort the past by falsely insinuating that history is made only by the rich and powerful? In this
the fifth Wittrock Lecture, Fredrik Logevall will consider these and other questions central to the task
of “Writing a Political Life.”"

The Wittrock Lecture Series was instigated by the Swedish Collegium in 2019, in honour of the
contributions of Professor Björn Wittrock, one of the founding directors of the Collegium in 1985
and its former Principal (1996-2018). The book series was launched in conjunction with this, and
as of today, four of the six lectures are available in print. Another one is expected to appear sometime
in the winter of 2024-25.

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Writing a Political Life: On the Challenging Relationship Between Biography and History
Fredrik Logevall
(Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, 2024)
ISBN: 978-91-981948-5-2

The book is available for download here.
To request a printed copy, please contact headoffice@swedishcollegium.se

To watch all Wittrock lectures, please see the View Lectures page.
To download previous volumes of the Wittrock Lecture Book Series, please see the SCAS Publications page.

Read more: SCAS News - 17 February 2023: "The 5th Wittrock Lecture, Panel Discussion and SCAS
Alumni Event Attracted People from Near and Far" >>