{"id":9507,"date":"2012-01-25T11:16:55","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T15:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etherwave.wordpress.com\/?p=9507"},"modified":"2012-01-25T11:16:55","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T15:16:55","slug":"book-review-science-for-welfare-and-warfare-technology-and-state-initiative-in-cold-war-sweden-ed-per-lundin-niklas-stenlas-and-johan-gribbe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/2012\/01\/25\/book-review-science-for-welfare-and-warfare-technology-and-state-initiative-in-cold-war-sweden-ed-per-lundin-niklas-stenlas-and-johan-gribbe\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Science for Welfare and Warfare: Technology and State Initiative in Cold War Sweden, ed. Per Lundin, Niklas Stenl\u00e5s, and Johan Gribbe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following book review appears<\/a> in Economic History Review <\/em>65 (2012): 398\u2013399. \u00a0\u00a9 2012 The Economic History Society.<\/p>\n

Per Lundin, Niklas Stenl\u00e5s, and Johan Gribbe, eds., Science for welfare and warfare: technology and state initiative in Cold War Sweden <\/em>(Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History\u00a0Publications, 2010. Pp. vi + 314. 3 figs. 26 illus. 6 plates. 1 tab. ISBN 9780881354256 Hbk. \u00a360.95\/$49.95)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In the 1950s a nation of seven million people possessed the world\u2019s fourth-largest air force. This fact is a particularly remarkable manifestation of Sweden\u2019s postwar status as a technological power disproportionate to its size. Given the importance ascribed to technology as means of improving nations\u2019 competitiveness, the historical strategies of the Swedish state and industry should be of considerable interest. This volume provides a valuable service by presenting original research into some of these strategies. In doing so, it also builds on and references a substantial existing literature, much of which is only available in Swedish.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Some chapters focus on policy with only an indirect connection to technology development. Hans J\u00f6rgensen sketches a history of Swedish agricultural policies and the building up of expert organizations for implementing those policies. Carina Gr\u00e5backe and Jan J\u00f6rnmark review and critique the Swedish state\u2019s housing subsidy and rent control policies. Stenl\u00e5s traces the history of Sweden\u2019s military-industrial complex. Per H\u00f6gselius recounts the state\u2019s evolving strategies to promote industry and innovation. The titular \u2018science\u2019 seems to be a tertiary concern. Most chapters outline the histories of particular institutions, technology development projects, and procurement and construction decisions. The book\u2019s \u2018glossary\u2019 comprises a useful list of the English and Swedish names of key institutes, agencies, committees, and professional and advocacy organizations. Business history also features, including new work on the exclusive public\u2013private partnerships that Mats Fridlund has termed \u2018development pairs\u2019. Many of the chapters structure their accounts with an eye toward elucidating larger intellectual and political contexts thought to have enabled the history at hand. Thomas Kaiserfeld\u2019s organizational history of science and technology in Sweden suggests that a \u2018fad for fashion\u2019 (p. 57) caused the country to imitate other nations\u2019 institutions rather than forge an independent path. Stenl\u00e5s, meanwhile, argues Sweden was overcommitted to military independence, making its arms industry self-perpetuating. Sverker S\u00f6rlin and Nina Wormbs recount the history of Sweden\u2019s rocket programme, first in the context of funding from the American military for rocket-based research, and later in the context of regional economic interest and participation in the European space programme.<\/p>\n

There is an effort throughout the book, including in the editors\u2019 introduction, to find analytical rubrics that might make sense of Sweden\u2019s postwar technological history as a whole. Different programmes\u2019 relationships to \u2018warfare\u2019 and \u2018welfare\u2019 are assessed, as is the inclusion of policies under an ideological umbrella of \u2018modernity\u2019 and \u2018neutrality\u2019. While all chapters are informative, analytical concerns sometimes divorce the subject matter from seemingly important questions. In his history of the building up of food preservation research, Gustav Holmberg is frustratingly evasive about actual problems and methods in food preservation. Ulla Ros\u00e9n examines technical and economic schemes to alleviate housewives\u2019 laundry burden, but leaves it unclear to what degree these schemes shaped or expedited the commercial impact on rapidly changing domestic experiences. The volume\u2019s most informative studies carefully target their analyses. Kristoffer Strandqvist\u2019s account of the strategic and circumstantial factors bearing upon the success of the Saab 29 Tunnan jet fighter explains how Saab overcame Sweden\u2019s lack of jet expertise by capitalizing on British willingness to trade in jet engines. Maja Fj\u00e6stad and Thomas Jonter chart the course of Sweden\u2019s nuclear reactor development programme alongside the arc of its desire to preserve its option to develop nuclear weapons, and the growing willingness of the US to sell nuclear reactors and fuel. Tom Petersson gives a fruitful juxtaposition of Datasaab\u2019s close relationship with the Swedish state with office equipment manufacturer Facit\u2019s attempt to compete in the international digital computer market.<\/p>\n

The best questions posed in this volume forgo extended engagement with unsurprising or even misleading contexts, such as Sweden\u2019s commitment to militarism. Strandqvist explicitly chafes at a \u2018neutralism\u2019 preoccupying Swedish historiography, which he compares to the rubric of \u2018decline\u2019 that once constrained the historiography of twentieth-century Britain (p. 107). Productive questions instead address the deeper choices facing the Swedish state and industry: to what extent its military and military industry should be autonomous, in what areas it could rely on trade with other countries, by what means the state should support domestic industry, how the state should foster domestic technical expertise, and by what means the state could best improve the lot of its citizens. Answering these sorts of questions helps establish independent periodizations for different policies and projects, while avoiding the possibly specious assumption that technology history can be structured primarily by reference to shifts in political rhetoric. However, without any evaluation of the scale of sectors within the national economy, and quantitative comparisons between policy alternatives as well as between Sweden and other nations, it remains difficult to gauge how the government, the military, commercial firms, and other institutions chose between options and constructed budgets. Economic historians will be disappointed by this volume\u2019s dearth of numbers, but should consider it a crucial resource nevertheless.<\/p>\n

William Thomas<\/p>\n

Imperial College London<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following book review appears in Economic History Review 65 (2012): 398\u2013399. \u00a0\u00a9 2012 The Economic History Society. Per Lundin, Niklas Stenl\u00e5s, and Johan Gribbe, eds., Science for welfare and warfare: technology and state initiative in Cold War Sweden (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History\u00a0Publications, 2010. Pp. vi + 314. 3 figs. 26 illus. 6 plates.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading… Book Review: Science for Welfare and Warfare: Technology and State Initiative in Cold War Sweden, ed. Per Lundin, Niklas Stenl\u00e5s, and Johan Gribbe<\/span>Continue Reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[549,564,729,779,925,996,1047,1119,1121,1168,1169,1394,1421,1422,1447,1453],"class_list":["post-9507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ewp-book-club","tag-gustav-holmberg","tag-hans-jorgensen","tag-jan-jornmark","tag-johan-gribbe","tag-kristoffer-strandqvist","tag-maja-fjaestad","tag-mats-fridlund","tag-niklas-stenlas","tag-nina-wormbs","tag-per-hogselius","tag-per-lundin","tag-sverker-sorlin","tag-thomas-jonter","tag-thomas-kaiserfeld","tag-tom-petersson","tag-ulla-rosen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rational-action.com\/etherwave\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}