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The early vasas. A history of Sweden, 1523–1611
Book RevieH,s
738
He denied that reformed protestants had the right to rebel1 against their idolatrous rulers, for all sovereigns ruled by the will of God. True believers must suffer without resistance. While Calvin rejected the possibility of rebellion, even to remove an idolatrous ruler, some of his followers were not so reticent, arguing for active resistance to their Catholic rulers. The most articulate of these were Pierre Viret, and Calvin’s spiritual heir, Theodore Beza. The great strength of this work is its detailed examination of the reformed theologians who defined the concept of idolatry, which was to prove so important in the social and political history of early modern Europe. However, by self-consciously limiting himself to ‘intellectual history’, he has left to others many interesting and intriguing questions. His decision not to explore the impact of Viret’s theories on Huguenot revolutionaries (p. 295) is just one case in point. However, where he does attempt to explore the practical implications of idolatry, he draws some curious, and rather puzzling conclusions. He explains that while protestants sought to overthrow Catholicism by destroying images, Catholics sought to stop their protestant adversaries with bodily harm. Eire concludes that the reasons for this were differences in their definitions of what constituted religious ‘pollution’ (pp. 161-2). One need look no further than Geneva and the burning of Servetus, or to the torture and execution of Catholics in England, to see the fallacy of such an assertion. Notwithstanding these limitations, Professor Eire has effectively demonstrated the important role of theology in the social and political developments of the sixteen century, and presented an interesting case for the unique contribution of Calvin to the intellectual history of early modern Europe. Kenneth
L. Parker
St. Andrew’s Priory, Valyermo. California The Early Vasas. A History of Sweden, 1523-1611, Michael Cambridge University Press, 1986), xiv+ 509pp., 512.95, paper.
Roberts
(Cambridge:
This is a paperback edition of a work first published in 1968. The title suggests that it is a general history of sixteenth century Sweden. This it hardly is, although it is a classic in its field and comes close to being a general political history of Sweden in that period. Roberts also gives much space to Swedish foreign relations. In this regard, he explores with penetration and in considerable detail the complicated triangular relationship between Sweden, Russia and Poland and their Baltic rivalries and wars. Roberts is the recognized authority on early modern Sweden in the English-speaking world and he writes with enthusiasm and verve political history which is preoccupied with the leading personalities in the unfolding drama. He has a tendency to moralize to the point of sounding sermonizing about the leading actors’ deeds and misdeeds. This almost court-like passing ofjudgment on actions and policies centuries old gives an oldfashionedaura to the book but it also perhaps helps to involve many readers more intimately with the subject matter. The period of Swedish history that Roberts deals with is unusally colorful and rich in drama. The emergence of the early modern Swedish kingdom as a sovereign entity from its strife ridden union with Denmark and the establishment and doings of the native Vasa dynasty make an absorbing tale even in Europe of the renaissance and reformation. The reigns of the founder of modern Sweden, Gustav Vasa and his sons Erik, Johan and Karl, and his grandson Sigismund, who all in turn succeeded him upon the Swedish throne, were filled with internal intrigues and feuds that frequently pitted the family members against one another. The Vasas were a rather extraordinary family by most standards. Gustav Vasa, the founder of the dynasty, was a self-made man with many of the virtues and vices of other successful self-made men. Practical, shrewd, acquisitive, and cautious in the face
Book Reviews
739
of unfamiliar odds, he as well as his son Karl emerge as political leaders who, with their talent for oratory and demagoguery and psychological insights into how to manipulate their fellow Swedes, come across as strikingly ‘modern’ politicians. They both prove particularly adept in fanning and playing upon the fears of their countrymen of real and potential foreign enemies as a means of consolidating and enhancing their personal power. Karl, whom Roberts presents in a critical and negative light, in many ways resembled more his father than did his older brothers Erik and Johan. The oldest, Erik, was mentally unstable although gifted in many ways and Johan was the most intellectually inclined of the Vasas. He entertained hopes of playing a historic role as a conciliator between the Lutheranism-that his father had introduced to Sweden, largely out of political and economic considerations-and Roman Catholicism. Johan’s personal rivalries with Ivan the Terrible of Moscow and the election of Johan’s son as the king of Poland helped to involve Sweden deeply in the politics of Eastern Europe. The comprehensiveness of Roberts’ book suffers from an essentially ahistorical definition of the geographical scope of his topic. In defining its geographical scope he looks at sixteenth century Sweden through the mirror of a twentieth century Sweden. This leads him largely, although not completely, to exclude Finland from his discussion. This causes confusion when Roberts first correctly defines Finland as a ‘constituent part of Sweden’ but subsequently proceeds to leave it and its people, towns and provinces out of his discussion of Sweden and its resources in the sixteenth century. In the few references that he makes upon Finland and its people, he sometimes distinguishes them from Sweden and the Swedes and sometimes not. His narrow definition of historic Sweden on the basis of the later scope of the Swedish state reflects an attitude common among Swedish historians and in this sense he has become a captive of their way of looking at their history. Roberts’ focus is essentially the Vasas’ political maneuverings and personalities and this story he explores well and with elegance. To his credit and to the enjoyment of his readers, his writing displays an elan rare among modern historians of Sweden, who have heavily concentrated their work upon the study of the Swedish economic and social structures. Within its limits, Roberts’ book remains a contribution of fundamental importance to the study of Swedish history. P.K. Hamalainen
University of Wisconsin-Madison The Ghost in the Atom: A Discussion of the Mysteries of Quantum Physics, ed. P.C.W. Davies and J.R. Brown (Cambridge University Press 1986) ix + 157 pp., f17.50 cloth: g6.50 paper. This fascinating volume, which grew out of a BBC radio project, is bound to provoke deep reflection in any reader interested in Western intellectual history. It consists of interviews with eight eminent physicists on the subject of the paradoxical implications of quantum physics for popular, and traditional scientific, notions of reality. The editors have added a commendably clear, relevant and compact introduction that outlines for the general reader the conceptual framework to which the interviews refer and within which the paradoxes arise. One of the intellectual tragedies of the twentieth century has been the growing foreignness of the conceptual content of the physical sciences and of mathematics to the educated public. The situation was very different during, and after, the seventeenth century scientific ‘revolution’. The impact of the ideas of Copernicus, Bacon and Galileo, Descartes, Newton and Leibniz, on Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Kant, to name just a few, and through these on so many others, was
738
He denied that reformed protestants had the right to rebel1 against their idolatrous rulers, for all sovereigns ruled by the will of God. True believers must suffer without resistance. While Calvin rejected the possibility of rebellion, even to remove an idolatrous ruler, some of his followers were not so reticent, arguing for active resistance to their Catholic rulers. The most articulate of these were Pierre Viret, and Calvin’s spiritual heir, Theodore Beza. The great strength of this work is its detailed examination of the reformed theologians who defined the concept of idolatry, which was to prove so important in the social and political history of early modern Europe. However, by self-consciously limiting himself to ‘intellectual history’, he has left to others many interesting and intriguing questions. His decision not to explore the impact of Viret’s theories on Huguenot revolutionaries (p. 295) is just one case in point. However, where he does attempt to explore the practical implications of idolatry, he draws some curious, and rather puzzling conclusions. He explains that while protestants sought to overthrow Catholicism by destroying images, Catholics sought to stop their protestant adversaries with bodily harm. Eire concludes that the reasons for this were differences in their definitions of what constituted religious ‘pollution’ (pp. 161-2). One need look no further than Geneva and the burning of Servetus, or to the torture and execution of Catholics in England, to see the fallacy of such an assertion. Notwithstanding these limitations, Professor Eire has effectively demonstrated the important role of theology in the social and political developments of the sixteen century, and presented an interesting case for the unique contribution of Calvin to the intellectual history of early modern Europe. Kenneth
L. Parker
St. Andrew’s Priory, Valyermo. California The Early Vasas. A History of Sweden, 1523-1611, Michael Cambridge University Press, 1986), xiv+ 509pp., 512.95, paper.
Roberts
(Cambridge:
This is a paperback edition of a work first published in 1968. The title suggests that it is a general history of sixteenth century Sweden. This it hardly is, although it is a classic in its field and comes close to being a general political history of Sweden in that period. Roberts also gives much space to Swedish foreign relations. In this regard, he explores with penetration and in considerable detail the complicated triangular relationship between Sweden, Russia and Poland and their Baltic rivalries and wars. Roberts is the recognized authority on early modern Sweden in the English-speaking world and he writes with enthusiasm and verve political history which is preoccupied with the leading personalities in the unfolding drama. He has a tendency to moralize to the point of sounding sermonizing about the leading actors’ deeds and misdeeds. This almost court-like passing ofjudgment on actions and policies centuries old gives an oldfashionedaura to the book but it also perhaps helps to involve many readers more intimately with the subject matter. The period of Swedish history that Roberts deals with is unusally colorful and rich in drama. The emergence of the early modern Swedish kingdom as a sovereign entity from its strife ridden union with Denmark and the establishment and doings of the native Vasa dynasty make an absorbing tale even in Europe of the renaissance and reformation. The reigns of the founder of modern Sweden, Gustav Vasa and his sons Erik, Johan and Karl, and his grandson Sigismund, who all in turn succeeded him upon the Swedish throne, were filled with internal intrigues and feuds that frequently pitted the family members against one another. The Vasas were a rather extraordinary family by most standards. Gustav Vasa, the founder of the dynasty, was a self-made man with many of the virtues and vices of other successful self-made men. Practical, shrewd, acquisitive, and cautious in the face
Book Reviews
739
of unfamiliar odds, he as well as his son Karl emerge as political leaders who, with their talent for oratory and demagoguery and psychological insights into how to manipulate their fellow Swedes, come across as strikingly ‘modern’ politicians. They both prove particularly adept in fanning and playing upon the fears of their countrymen of real and potential foreign enemies as a means of consolidating and enhancing their personal power. Karl, whom Roberts presents in a critical and negative light, in many ways resembled more his father than did his older brothers Erik and Johan. The oldest, Erik, was mentally unstable although gifted in many ways and Johan was the most intellectually inclined of the Vasas. He entertained hopes of playing a historic role as a conciliator between the Lutheranism-that his father had introduced to Sweden, largely out of political and economic considerations-and Roman Catholicism. Johan’s personal rivalries with Ivan the Terrible of Moscow and the election of Johan’s son as the king of Poland helped to involve Sweden deeply in the politics of Eastern Europe. The comprehensiveness of Roberts’ book suffers from an essentially ahistorical definition of the geographical scope of his topic. In defining its geographical scope he looks at sixteenth century Sweden through the mirror of a twentieth century Sweden. This leads him largely, although not completely, to exclude Finland from his discussion. This causes confusion when Roberts first correctly defines Finland as a ‘constituent part of Sweden’ but subsequently proceeds to leave it and its people, towns and provinces out of his discussion of Sweden and its resources in the sixteenth century. In the few references that he makes upon Finland and its people, he sometimes distinguishes them from Sweden and the Swedes and sometimes not. His narrow definition of historic Sweden on the basis of the later scope of the Swedish state reflects an attitude common among Swedish historians and in this sense he has become a captive of their way of looking at their history. Roberts’ focus is essentially the Vasas’ political maneuverings and personalities and this story he explores well and with elegance. To his credit and to the enjoyment of his readers, his writing displays an elan rare among modern historians of Sweden, who have heavily concentrated their work upon the study of the Swedish economic and social structures. Within its limits, Roberts’ book remains a contribution of fundamental importance to the study of Swedish history. P.K. Hamalainen
University of Wisconsin-Madison The Ghost in the Atom: A Discussion of the Mysteries of Quantum Physics, ed. P.C.W. Davies and J.R. Brown (Cambridge University Press 1986) ix + 157 pp., f17.50 cloth: g6.50 paper. This fascinating volume, which grew out of a BBC radio project, is bound to provoke deep reflection in any reader interested in Western intellectual history. It consists of interviews with eight eminent physicists on the subject of the paradoxical implications of quantum physics for popular, and traditional scientific, notions of reality. The editors have added a commendably clear, relevant and compact introduction that outlines for the general reader the conceptual framework to which the interviews refer and within which the paradoxes arise. One of the intellectual tragedies of the twentieth century has been the growing foreignness of the conceptual content of the physical sciences and of mathematics to the educated public. The situation was very different during, and after, the seventeenth century scientific ‘revolution’. The impact of the ideas of Copernicus, Bacon and Galileo, Descartes, Newton and Leibniz, on Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Kant, to name just a few, and through these on so many others, was