Introduction to Nordic Cultures is an innovative, interdisciplinary introduction to Nordic history, cultures and societies from medieval times to today. Edited by Annika Lindskog (Lecturer in Swedish) and Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (Professor of Scandinavian and Comparative Literature), the textbook contains chapters by former and current UCL members of staff working in the field of Scandinavian Studies. The collaborative nature of the book means that its spans the whole Nordic region, covering historical periods from the Viking Age to modern society, and engages with a range of subjects: from runic inscriptions on iron rings and stone monuments, via eighteenth-century scientists, Ibsen’s dramas and turn-of-the-century travel, to twentieth-century health films and the welfare state, nature ideology, Greenlandic literature, Nordic Noir, migration, ‘new’ Scandinavians, and stereotypes of the Nordic.
The book, published by UCL Press, is available open access from the publisher’s website.

Image on left Wikimedia Commons Bernt Rostad CC-BY.