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History and Ethic in Pre-Revolutionary Sweden
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), Department of Global Political Studies (GPS).
2012 (English)In: Nordic paths to modernity / [ed] Johann Pall Arnason, Björn Wittrock, Berghahn Books, 2012, p. 111-142Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze how historians and other writers in eighteenth-century Sweden conceived of the social benefits of history writing within the context of what they considered a modern(izing) enlightened polity. In the 1740s and 1750s the benefits of history were discussed in the context of an ongoing enlightenment discourse on society that stipulated a close relationship between knowledge about the past and values like civility, virtue and patriotism. Virtually all of the speeches that are analyzed in this article refer to how historical reflection is a social practice that creates civic bonds between individuals and groups, bonds that constitute the premises for the creation and prosperity of a modern civil society and for a collective identity based on civic, as opposed to religious, foundations. The first two sections of the chapter recreate some aspects of the discourse on society in Sweden around the middle of the century by considering contemporary notions of enlightenment and civil society respectively. The third section shows in more detail how contemporaries argued that moral education was the most powerful instrument to create a community based on fellowship rather than force. A fourth section specifically analyzes texts that articulated the notion of history as a teacher of modern sociability, which is then specified in a final section that considers contemporary ideas about the advantages of visual and written historical media – statues and biographies respectively – to engage broader segments of society in the civilizing project.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Berghahn Books, 2012. p. 111-142
Keywords [en]
Sweden, History, Eighteenth Century, Civil Society, Ethics
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-9155Local ID: 14674ISBN: 978-0-85745-269-6 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-9155DiVA, id: diva2:1406187
Available from: 2020-02-28 Created: 2020-02-28 Last updated: 2024-06-11Bibliographically approved

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Hallberg, Peter

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CiteExportLink to record
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  • apa
  • ieee
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