The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

While I was writing this book, several people—including some Danes and, in particular, many Swedes—expressed genuine bemusement that they would be of the slightest interest to anyone outside Scandinavia. “Why do you think people will want to know about us?” they asked. “We are all so boring and stiff.” “There must be more interesting people in the

cause for special concern is the OECD’s figure for gross domestic expenditure on research and development, which, when considered as a percentage of a country’s GDP, is a key indicator of future economic performance. Not only is Norway investing relatively little in its R&D—1.71 percent of GDP compared with 3.42 percent in Sweden—but almost hal

Thanks to this ruthless pragmatism Sweden, the serene swan, sailed through the 1939–1945 conflict—during which its GNP rose by 20 percent—and in the decades that followed its wealth grew to match that of the United States in per capita terms. But its reputation was permanently tarnished by its often personal connections to Nazi Germany

“Norwegian racism is always a kind of racism that is not prepared to accept it being qualified as such,” agreed Bangstad. “Because we’re the good guys, and racism is what bad people do. Within the last ten years there was a public debate on whether one could use the Norwegian equivalent of neger, and people would get up and say, ‘I have the right t

If Daun was to be believed, Swedish shyness and self-effacement even extended to the country’s maternity wards and funeral parlors, in what have to be the most extreme examples of Nordic inhibition I have yet encountered. During childbirth, Daun says, “Swedish women try to moan as little as possible, and they often ask, when it is all over, whether

The fragment of A Fugitive that has come both to define and to torment the Danes is a list of rules by which the residents of the fictional town of Jante were said to abide. These rules set out the Law of Jante (Janteloven), a kind of Danish Ten Commandments, the influence and infamy of which have spread beyond their home country throughout the Nor

Immigration will continue in the north—it has to for many reasons—and integration will continue to improve.

Finland’s climate and topography must clearly have played a part in forming the Finnish character, but it also seems likely that the Finns’ taciturnity is in some way connected to their homogeneity.

Swedes don’t hold themselves in terribly high regard.