A History of the Swedish People
Volume 1 - From Prehistory to the Renaissance
Foreword by Gunnar Myrdal
Translated by Paul Britten Austin
Vilhelm Moberg
Univerity of Minnesota Press, 1970 - Edition 2005
"Vilhelm Moberg succeeds in building up a picture of the medieval
tiller of the soil that is full of insights and presented with
compassion, enthusiams, and freshness." - Times Literary Supplement
Beginning in prehistoric times and culminating with the Dacke
rebellion of 1542, renowned novelist Vilhelm Moberg's two-volume
popular history of the Swedish people approaches its subject from
the viewpoint of the common people, documenting peasants´ lives as
well as those of the royal families.
In this first volume Moberg examines Viking raids, the coming of
Christianity, and the Folkungs royal dynasty, whose tyrannical reign
lasted from 1250 to the 1360s. He vividly describes the arrival of the
Black Death from a ship that docked carrying only dead passengers,
and he recounts the reign of Queen Margareta who founded the
Kalmar Union, comprising all of Scandinavia. In every chapter,
Moberg faithfully imparts how history affected "the whole people"
of Sweden.
Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1973) 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.
Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987) was an acclaimed Swedish economist and politician.
He won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1974.
Paul Britten Austin is a translator and historian.
(The text above comes from the back of the book)