Book Description

In this book a group of 16 scholars from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, Finland, Germany and the USA explore the changes that had taken place in the conception of the North during the 18th century, changes that were a symptom of an ambivalent understanding of the North vis-a-vis the South. From antiquity to Montesquieu, the North could be considered a Dystopia and a Utopia - a barbaric margin of Europe, but also an area of freedom, natural strength, and robust women who were any man's equal. The book, drawing on travel accounts of the period, is thus historical, but it is conceived under the optics of modern multiculturalism and cultural clashes. The study encompasses areas ranging from botany and geography, to Nordic literature and language, to science and the arts. The book will appeal to students and scholars in the interdisciplinary fields of literary studies, cultural studies, anthropology, history and most European language studies.