Made in Sweden: 25 ideas that created a country

In recent times, we have come to favour all things Scandi — their food, furnishings, fiction, fashion, & general way of life. We seem to regard the Swedes & their Scandinavian neighbours as altogether more sophisticated, admirable, & evolved than us. We have all aspired to be Swedish, to live in their perfectly designed society from the future. But what if we have invested all our faith in a fantasy? What if Sweden has in fact never been as moderate, egalitarian, dignified, or tolerant as it would like to (have us) think? The recent rise to political prominence of an openly neo-Nazi party has begun to crack the illusion, & here now is Swede Elisabeth Åsbrink, who loves her country ‘but not blindly’, presenting twenty-five of her nation’s key words & icons afresh, in order to give the world’s understanding of Swedish Values a short, sharp corrective shock …