Swedish Environmental History

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xliii:2 (Autumn, 2012), 275–287. ÖRJAN KARDELL Örjan Kardell Cows and Forests: Swedish Environmental History Agriculture and Forestry in Sweden since 1900—a Cartographic Descrip- tion. Edited by Ulf Jansson (Stockholm, National Atlas of Sweden SNA, Norstedts förlagsgrupp AB, 2011) 232 pp. SEK 241 Agriculture and Forestry in Sweden since 1900: Geographical and Histori- cal Studies. Edited by Hans Antonson and Ulf Jansson (Stockholm, the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, 2011) 542 pp. SEK 186 Sweden became a modern country only in the twentieth century. A major shift in silvicultural practices, plus an emphasis on dairy production, contributed to this national transformation at a time when, paradoxically, rural Sweden was being denuded of people and agriculturally and pastorally driven pursuits were replaced by urban-based industries and services. The two books in this review essay explain how this transformation happened, and why. Nei- ther book is, strictly speaking, historical, but of them both explain changes over time. In that sense, they are interdisciplinary, though not in an explicit sense. Jansson’s Agriculture and Forestry in Sweden since 1900—a Carto- graphic Description (hereinafter, atlas) is intended to describe developments since the last cartographical study of Swedish agriculture in 1909.1 The book is unique, for Sweden, insofar as it also includes developments within forestry, thus allowing opportuni- ties to make comparisons between two professional ªelds that usu- Örjan Kardell is Doctor of Forestry in Agricultural History, Dept. of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, Umeå University. He is the author of, with Anna Lindkvist and Christer Nordlund, “Intensive Forestry as Progress or Decay? An Analysis of the Debate about Forest Fertilization in Sweden, 1960–2010, Forests, II (2011), 112–146, available at http://www.mpdi.com/1999-4907/2/1/112/; “Arkivens bild av skogen som resurs under 1650–1950—en handledning,” in Håkan Tunón and Anna Dahlström (eds.), Nycklar till kunskap: Om människans bruka av naturen (Stockholm, 2009), 73–86. © 2012 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc. 1 Wilhelm Flach, Herman Juhlin-Dannfelt, and Gustav Sundbärg, Sveriges jordbruk vid 1900 talets början: statistiskt kartverk (Göteborg, 1909). Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JINH_a_00382 by guest on 29 September 2021 276 | COWS AND FORESTS ally receive strictly individual treatment in both the historical and scientiªc literature. Structurally and editorially, it organizes the agricultural development that it covers to correspond with the charts and topics presented in the 1909 atlas—an obvious point of depar- ture. The atlas is accompanied by Antonson and Jansson’s volume with the same main title (hereinafter anthology), which has the same general alignment. The subject matter in both volumes, however, is wider than the title suggests. Reindeer herding, game management, and topics not traditionally subsumed under the agricultural ªeld, such as leisure and national heritage, are included in both volumes. The anthology also contains articles about such disparate matters as rural architecture, horticulture, and represen- tations of agricultural concerns in art and literature through time. The volumes are in many respects complementary. The atlas provides the basic outline of forestry and agriculture in Sweden, whereas the anthology explores a wider range of information. Though the two volumes can be read separately, the recom- mended order is the atlas ªrst and then the anthology. Under- standably, the atlas has a more distinctly geographical touch, since charts and maps are its primary features, accompanied by select commentaries and short, thematic articles.2 The anthology takes a more traditional textbook approach. Some of the maps and charts displayed in the atlas appear in the anthology with additional statis- tical diagrams, etc. Although many of the same authors contributed to both volumes, the anthology has detailed articles and charts by authors who do not appear in the atlas, and the atlas has a few short articles by authors who are not represented in the anthology. Since agriculture and forestry both concern things that grow, the atlas offers a thorough, cartographical introduction to Sweden’s climate, bedrock, and soil, as well as its population dy- namics from a natural geographer’s point of view. This elementary but important information is not part of the anthology. The authors in both volumes are experts in their respective ªelds, usually with a research connection to their areas of interest (except for Sweden’s minister for rural affairs who wrote the fore- word used in both cases). The editors are human geographers, each of whom contributed several articles. The authors represent a 2 The atlas contains 342 maps, 133 charts, 171 photographs, and 59 illustrations. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JINH_a_00382 by guest on 29 September 2021 ÖRJAN KARDELL | 277 mix of disciplines, from the natural sciences to the humanities, adding a distinctly scientiªc slant to the historical analysis. Several of the authors write from a genuinely interdisciplinary background; others remain entirely within particular ªelds. Yet, neither book contains an article that attempts to draw major interdisciplinary conclusions regarding the complementary development of Swedish agriculture and forestry during the twentieth century. This intellectual challenge is left to the readers. Nonetheless, the material in this highly ambitious project is comprehensive and up to date in every respect. The one slight drawback concerns the publication of the two volumes in both Swedish and English. In the English translation of the Swedish version, which came ªrst, material deemed too particular to Sweden was deleted, but neither individual articles nor any other material was inserted to facilitate international readers’ understanding of conditions peculiar to Sweden’s background, which the editorial excisions have not eliminated entirely. Most of these peculiarities are geographical, concerning, for example, the division of Sweden into provinces (landskap) or counties (län). The county is the ofªcial unit and the backbone of the administrative order. The province is more of a conceptual throwback to the Middle Ages, deªning amalgamations of the settled districts that formed political entities. The provinces are still much in evidence today, since they provide local and regional communities and populations with their identities and spoken dialects. But the administrative system is not always geographically congruent with the landskap division, though a few counties and provinces share names. Certain ambiguities on this score might leave foreign readers in the lurch, since the volumes make no effort to explicate the individual texts in this respect.3 The books also mention a third geographical division above the level of province or county. If Sweden is divided into roughly, equal thirds, the two northernmost thirds are known as Norrland, literally the north land. The last third is subdivided into halves. The northern half—where the capital of Stockholm is situated— is called Svealand and the southernmost half Götaland.4 To compli- 3 Maps on the county (län) and province (landskap) divisions are presented on the inside cover of Janken Myrdal and Mats Morell (eds.), The Agrarian History of Sweden: From 4000 bc to ad 2000 (Lund, 2011). 4 A map with this division is also presented on the inside cover of Myrdal and Morell (eds.) Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/JINH_a_00382 by guest on 29 September 2021 278 | COWS AND FORESTS cate matters one step further, natives often refer to Svealand as central Sweden and to Götaland as the south of Sweden, or at least a part of it, both in common parlance and in writing. Further- more, areas signiªed in the texts as the “west of Sweden,” the “southwest,” or the” west coast” are all situated near, or inland of, the tiny stretch of Sweden’s coast along the reaches of the North Sea, between the southernmost point of Sweden and neighboring Norway to the northwest. None of these expressions for central, southern, or western Sweden correspond to their equivalents in the strict geographical sense. A few points neglected or undeveloped in the texts need to be made for a proper understanding of twentieth-century Swedish agriculture and forestry. First of all, Sweden’s neutrality in foreign politics and military affairs throughout most of the twentieth century—including both World Wars—until joining the Eu- ropean Union (eu) in 1995 meant that the country had to be largely self-sufªcient. This independence inºuenced agricultural policies after World War II and during the Cold War era. Guaran- teed ªxed prices for farm products ªrst and food subsidies later were the main tools in the government’s arsenal, even though the result was a large agricultural surplus that had do be dumped at a loss on the world market—a cost purposely assumed by the government and maintained in the national budget.5 energy, paper, and forestry Industrialization, when it arrived in Sweden, was established in an economic context in which ex- ports were based on reªning such domestic raw materials as iron ore into bar iron and pig iron and, eventually, milling lumber into planks. In these enterprises, the entire industrial chain from ob- taining the primary materials to reªning the products was handled within the country. Energy requirements for the manufacturing processes were met by water power, ªrewood, and charcoal in combination, since Sweden was, and is, lacking in coal deposits. Agrarian History of Sweden. In the atlas, this division is presented in Åsa Ahrland and Inger Olausson, “The Horticultural Industry: A Green-Fingered Trade in Urban, Modern, and Global Society,” 150 (map “Types of Forest in 1980 and 2006”), with a slight deviation, since Norrland is divided into northern and southern halves. 5 atlas, Antonson and Jansson, “Introduction—Agriculture and Forestry in a Century of Change,” 40–45.

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