Scandinavia and the Great Powers 1890–1940

Survey of the changing position of all four Nordic states in twentieth-century international relations.

Patrick Salmon (Author)

9780521411615, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 November 1997

448 pages, 3 maps 8 tables
23.6 x 16.1 x 3.3 cm, 0.8 kg

"Scandinavian and the Great Powers 1890-1940 can only be characterised as a standard in its field-i.e. the political, economic and military rivalry between the great powers and the Scandinavian countries. It is something as rare as a wide-ranging and sharply formulated syntheises, based on secondary literature and the author's own archive studies of the region's postion in international politics through half a century. The thesis that the Scandinvian countries were capable of influencing the outside world and, if nothing eles, got the best out of the various high-tension situation is documented." H Net Reviews

At the beginning of the twentieth century Scandinavia lay on the margin of European power politics, but with the polarisation of international relations in the era of the two world wars, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden became the point where the spheres of influence of three great powers - Great Britain, Germany and Russia - intersected. In this book, Patrick Salmon uses his extensive research in British, German and Scandinavian archives to examine the position of the Nordic countries in the great-power rivalries and conflicts of the period 1890–1940. However, it does not treat the Nordic countries merely as passive victims. It seeks to show that, despite the disparity in strength between the great powers and the small states of northern Europe, the latter had means of adapting to great-power pressures and even influencing the policies of their formidable neighbours.

Preface
List of tables
List of abbreviations
Definitions
Map
Introduction
1. The end of isolation: Scandinavia and the modern world
2. Scandinavia in European diplomacy 1899–1914
3. The war of the future: Scandinavia in the strategic plans of the great powers
4. Neutrality preserved: Scandinavia and the First World War
5. The Nordic countries between the wars
6. Confrontation and co-existence: Scandinavia and the great powers after the First World War
7. Britain, Germany and the Nordic economies 1916–1936
8. Power, ideology and markets: Great Britain, Germany and Scandinavia 1933–1939
9. Scandinavia and the coming of the Second World War
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]