Lychnos: Annual of the Swedish History of Science Society
Lychnos: Annual of the Swedish History of Science Society is published by the Swedish Society for the History of Science and Ideas since 1936.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The copyright for the work published in Lychnos remains with the authors.
Copyright (c) 2026 Emma Hagström Molin; Anders Burman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2026 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2026 Emma Hagström Molin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2026 Emma Hagström Molin; Jacob Orrje https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2026 Lisa Hellman , Edda Manga , Julia Nordblad, Fredrik Petersson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tema: Marknadens idéhistorier Thematic Issue: Histories of Market Thought
Copyright (c) 2026 Leif Runefelt, Jim Hagström , Liza Jakobsson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Rudolf Kjelléns nationalsocialism och den europeiska unghögerns tankestil
There is little doubt that Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922) was an important political thinker in his own time, and that his writings have gained renewed interest duringthe last decade. However, today’s reception often skirts thorough investigation of Kjellén’s ideological coordinates. This article addresses these shortcomings by examining the history of far-right political thought in pre-fascist Europe. It works through a problematization of Kjellén’s reception and identifies a potential context sometimes mentioned there but left underexamined: the so-called German Conservative Revolution. Through the reconstruction of this context, the article finds a wider field of ideological significance in the conceptual history of “national socialism”—a term Kjellén himself used—before the Hitler movement. The political imaginary associated with this semantic field provides a more solid framework for understanding the theoretical and ideological context of Kjellén’s thought—as well as that of the European far right over the long term.
Copyright (c) 2026 Hjalmar Falk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Connoisseurs and the Swedish Alcohol Monopoly: A Cultural History of Swedish Wine Journalism Wine reviews became a fixture in Swedish daily newspapers and lifestyle magazines in the early 1980s, marking the emergence of wine journalism as a distinct field. When Svenska Dagbladet launched its wine column on April 11, 1981, Expressen and Dagens Nyheter followed within months, triggering a rapid expansion of wine coverage in regional newspapers as well. During this period, daily newspapers played a pivotal role in educating the public about wine, particularly in the wake of the 1979 ban on alcohol advertising. My analysis, Konnässörerna och monopolet (The Connoisseurs and the Monopoly), examines early Swedish wine journalism with a focus on its claims to authority and wine’s function as a social marker. It explores how journalists engaged audiences, communicated complex sensory experiences, and established credibility within a newly formed field of expertise. The study highlights a significant yet previously overlooked dimension of modern Swedish consumer culture.
Copyright (c) 2026 Peter Josephson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Around 1916–1918, Sweden established an official cost-of-living index. This index was firstly the enabler of a new kind of wage system, one in which salaries would adjust “automatically” to the rising living costs. Perhaps surprisingly, in Sweden such a “sliding-scale” system was often presented not as a modern innovation, but as the resurrection of a pre-modern, in-kind economy. The leading proponent of this wage reform was Joseph Guinchard, director of Stockholm’s municipal bureau of statistics. For him, the cost-of-living index would serve the aim of rescuing “the middle class”, seen as the backbone of society, and preserving the existing class hierarchy. The article highlights the role of social statistics in the early attempts to organize civil servants, and in the renewal of conservative politics at the time of Sweden’s democratization. It also presents Oscar Ljungström’s related but competing proposal for wage reform, which he made a cornerstone for a proto-fascist vision. While relatively obscure, this more radical line of thought may help highlighting certain aspects of the cost-ofliving politics of the 1910s, including its characteristic fascination for in-kind economy. This too stands in contrast to the modern concept of inflation, and to the present role of the consumer price index.
Copyright (c) 2026 Rasmus Fleischer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In 1955, one of Sweden’s earliest indoor shopping centers opened in the city of Luleå. The shopping center formula was widely debated in Swedish industry press in the 1950s, and the developers of the Luleå center launched an intense campaign for shopping centers as a selling-technology in the years after it opened. Investigating this campaign, this article analyzes the planning rationalities that were attached to the shopping center as it rose to prominence in the 1950s and suggests the term consumer engineering to understand them. I show how the shopping center formula rose out of a disbelief in the free market as steering logic for organizing consumer practices in a city. Old ways of physically organizing stores were deemed obsolete and insufficient, and unfit for planning consumer practices “rationally”. In light of this, the shopping center formula was argued to enable new and increased forms of expert planning of the behaviors and desires of consumers, from experts who could model the consumer experience on research into consumer behavior and consumer psychology. Thus, the campaign for shopping centers in Sweden was centered around making Swedish retailers embrace the planning rationality of the shopping center. In the literature on Swedish social engineering, it is often taken for granted that social engineering was primarily a statist undertaking aiming to shape the private life. In this article I investigate another side of these governing rationalities, and show how imperatives of subverting an unplanned free market in favor of expert-led planning also came from the market itself.
Copyright (c) 2026 Arvid Sjödin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Fantasin om totalt skydd av samhällskroppen
This article examines the Swedish forestry debate on swampification (försumpning) from the turn of the 20th century to the early 1930s, when concerns about declining forest productivity were framed as threats to the state body and the future. Using a biopolitical perspective, it shows how the debate reflected broader societal discourses on risk, degeneration, and national improvement. Imagined dangers and protective measures were part of the same rationality that shaped welfare, hygiene, and population governance. The forest’s swampification was cast as a degenerative process requiring state-led intervention, yet this protection also concealed internal contradictions. Alongside fears of decay, the debate was driven by science and a modernizing optimism that emphasized control, regeneration, and progress. Drawing on the concepts of immunization and fantasy, the article analyzes historical scientific reports, media sources and opinion pieces. The results illustrate how forest management was shaped both by anxieties about disorder and by desires for a better future. This article situates a specific forestry debate within the discursive logics of modernity and societal transformation and thereby connects environmental history, the history of science and ideas, and political theory.
Copyright (c) 2026 Erika Skilström https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The productive market Market speak in industrial Sweden This study examines the use of the term ‘market’ in Swedish from the perspective of the history of language usage. First, four modes of speech are identified: the stable, problematic, productive, and dominant market. A focus on the productive mode during Sweden’s industrial period, around 1870–1870, then guides close readings of encyclopedias and remote digital readings of parliamentary materials. The results show that the understanding of the market gradually became more abstract. Additionally, an increase in the productivity of market-related compound words is observed, particularly in the context of labor markets. The study highlights how the market is construed linguistically and conceptually, and how shifts in the usage of market words reflect broader socio-economic transformations. By demonstrating the variety of alternatives in past market discourse, the analysis challenges the assumption of the market as a homogenous and timeless economic concept, thus contributing to a more nuanced historical understanding.
Copyright (c) 2026 Henrik Björck, Claes Ohlsson, Shafqat Mumtaz Virk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Interdisciplinary Circulation of “Holism”
Holism is a term loaded with multiple meanings. Coined by statesman and botanist Jan Smuts in 1926, it was mainly used in academia until its public breakthrough around 1980. This article explores holism’s interdisciplinary circulation in science during, roughly, its first sixty years of existence, focusing on ecology, psychology, medicine, social science, pedagogy, and philosophy. While primarily an epistemic term, holism has carried ideological and spiritual connotations that have shifted over time, from associations with totalitarianism in the interwar era, to environmentalism and New Age spirituality since the 1970s. By tracing the interdisciplinary history of holism—its use in different contexts, what its partner and counter terms have been, what its appeal has consisted of, and what its critics have rejected—this article also expounds why holism is prevalent today and puts us in a better position to assess its scientific merit.
Copyright (c) 2026 Bruno Hamnell https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This article examines how the concept of the market is rearticulated in the early writings of Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck during the 1950s and 1960s — a formative period both for Lindbeck’s intellectual development and for the Swedish welfare state. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality and recent scholarship on neoliberalism, the article argues that Lindbeck’s understanding of the market evolved from a site of economic exchange into a broader epistemic and moral ordering principle. Central to this transformation is the influence of Friedrich Hayek’s theory of the market as an information processor and Gary Becker’s theory of human capital, which Lindbeck employs to address social democratic concerns such as inequality and bureaucratic inefficiency. Rather than promoting laissez-faire, Lindbeck advocates a vision of market governance that depends on active state intervention. He redefines the role of the state as a constructor and guarantor of competitive markets, while positioning the consumer as a rational and sovereign subject whose desires are expressed and fulfilled through acts of consumption. By examining Lindbeck’s articulation of the market in relation to debates on planning, equality, and the New Left, the article shows how neoliberal ideas were translated into a Swedish context, and how Lindbeck served as a discursive bridge between neoliberal epistemology and the social democratic project. Through this analysis, the article contributes to a growing literature on the intellectual history of early neoliberalism in Sweden.
Copyright (c) 2026 Victor Pressfeldt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This article contributes to discussions on Sweden’s rapid and thorough financialization process by examining how the people’s shares concept has been used in both public discourse and marketing campaigns since the mid-20th century to increase shareholding among the Swedish public. It focuses on the privatization of state-owned companies during the mid-1990s and how the centre-right government applied the people’s shares concept in marketing design and rhetoric to advance the idea of financial market democratization. The analysis covers the share sales campaigns of forest management company AssiDomän and mortgage lender Stadshypotek as well as the popular educational “People’s shares project”, conducted by lobbying organization Aktiefrämjandet. The article reveals that from heated political-ideological discussions on people’s shares and owner democracy around 1960, the concept was depolitized, emerging as related to the tradition and reliability of both large Swedish industry and welfare state (“People’s home”) ideals.
Copyright (c) 2026 Charlotte Nilsson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The 19th century saw the privatization and industrialization of Swedish forests, together with increasing concern for future forest shortages. This article investigates market notions and the relationship to the future in Swedish forestry debates during the middle and end of the century. It shows that the rights of present and future generations were partly conceptualized in economic terms. It further argues that as a balanced, economic interest was seen as an important incentive for forest management, the market was given an important role for notions of responsible forestry. Nevertheless, some worried that the forest differed from other commodities. For example, “räntabilitetsteorin” stated that the forest’s value growth was slower than other long-term investments, leading to questions about the economic rationality for private individuals to cultivate forests. The end of the century also saw growing concern for the forest as a capital being “locked” while growing, clashing with modern economic life.
Copyright (c) 2026 Malin Sternesjö https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Since the 1980s, financial deregulation and welfare cuts have driven an economic risk shift, requiring individuals to take greater financial responsibility through private savings in stocks and mutual funds. An unexplored aspect of this “financialization of everyday life” is the personal finance advice provided by experts employed by banks and other market-oriented actors. This study examines financial savings advice provided by these advisors in Sweden’s four largest newspapers from 1987 to 2017. The study identifies three eras: the family economists (1987–1997), the private economists (1997–2012), and the savings economists (2012–2017). The findings suggest that, following the economic turmoil of the early 1990s, personal finance advice became increasingly decontextualized and focused on developing generic financial skills and risk-embracing subjectivities. This risk shift, in turn, raises important questions about the role of consumer journalism in paving way for and reinforcing the market-oriented notion of financial literacy that has become prevalent in the 2000s.
Copyright (c) 2026 Axel Vikström https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This article examines the representation of women artists in the online modern art auctions of Bukowskis, one of the leading auction houses in the Nordic region. The study finds that women artists are significantly underrepresented compared to their male counterparts, both in terms of the number of listed works and in dedicated thematic auctions. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of cultural production, the article analyzes how Bukowskis’ marketing strategies contribute to the transformation of works by women artists into symbolic goods within the art market. In particular, the marketing highlights the artists’ education, connections to established male figures, international influences, and institutional recognition. Through these strategies, Bukowskis portrays women artists as historically significant figures. The promotion of artistic recognition is thus positioned as a key component of the auction house’s broader commercial strategy, thereby contributing to the canonization of artists.
Copyright (c) 2026 Tintin Hodén https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This article examines how historians positioned themselves within academia and society, as reflected in Swedish press debates about historical research during the second half of the 20th century. Focusing on debates from 1950, 1978, 1993, and 1999, the study explores the evolving relationship between the humanities and social sciences, as well as the tension between academic and popular history. Drawing on concepts of contextualization, it examines how historians articulated the societal relevance of their discipline. Through a close examination of press material, the study reveals that historians consistently balanced scientific rigor with the need to engage a broader audience. While popular history gained prominence in the 1990s, its roots extend back through the post-war period. The findings also show how the increasing influence of social scientific methods placed the humanities in a more defensive position. The article emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between historical actors’ self-understanding and historians’ contextualization, warning that overreliance on the former can obscure broader historical dynamics. This research provides insights into the public discourse that have shaped the discipline, reflecting the shifting boundaries and ongoing challenges faced by historians.
Copyright (c) 2026 Daniel Nyström https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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Copyright (c) 2025 Jenny Eklöf, Erland Mårald https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Hampus Östh Gustafsson, Synne Myrebøe, Annelie Drakman, Erik Isberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In the late 1970s, the media debate about recombinant DNA technology was Sweden’s first, but far from last, controversy about the risks and possibilities of genetic engineering. Based on the concept of knowledge cartographies, this study highlights how the main actors in the debate tried to make sense of what gene technology entailed, but also, and more importantly, how knowledge about the technology and its consequences should be communicated and disseminated in society. The article shows that the combination of a relatively unanimous research community with the absence of an organized and engaged public meant that the communicative line of conflict mainly came to stand between researchers on one side and the mass media and individual politicians on the other. Here, long-established trust in experts stood against a new approach in which the research community was held democratically and morally accountable. The whole debate can be understood as being placed in a transitional period in which the previously dominating authoritative knowledge cartography began to make room for a burgeoning public sphere cartography. The debate was also colored by its contemporary context; by other ongoing science-related controversies, such as that of nuclear power, and not least by the emergence of new journalistic ideals and broader public discussions about academic freedom and scientists’ communicative obligations.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jenny Eklöf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Fostering Elites in the Shadow of the Cold War: Scientific School Competitions in Sweden, 1960–1980. This article aims to investigate the multiple reasons for the launching and development of two forms of scientific competition for high school students in Sweden. It also seeks to analyse if and how these events could be understood as social practices for the fostering of scientific elites during the period 1960–1980. The two competition formats were imported simultaneously from the Soviet Union (so-called “Olympiads”) and the United States (so called “Science Fairs”) respectively in a time dominated by the Cold War. The article deploys three analytical levels: Firstly, it discusses the motives and reasons for the events being launched in this specific period. Secondly, it investigates whether the competitions can be understood as social practices where the most successful participants were able to accumulate different forms of advantages in science compared to their peers. A third analytical level examines the position of the competitions in relation to the Swedish secondary school system during the period and its role in the tension between meritocratic and democratic goals of education.
Copyright (c) 2026 Daniel Lövheim https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In 1920, Sweden experienced a severe outbreak of pandemic influenza, primarily affecting the rural areas in the north. The epicentre of the 1920 outbreak was Arjeplog, a small and remote parish that had escaped earlier pandemic waves. However, in 1920, the parish exhibited the highest influenza mortality in Sweden during the entire period of 1918–1920. This article examines the extensive press coverage of the outbreak in two newspapers, Norrskensflamman and Aftonbladet, focusing on how the events were reported, perceived, and analysed in relation to the newspapers’ political stances. The findings reveal that although their journalistic ambitions, motives and political stances differed, both newspapers expressed similar ideas about an underprivileged, underdeveloped, and uneducated north, where poor social conditions and ignorance had exacerbated the severe consequences of the outbreak. Norrskensflamman’s coverage, featuring substantial critical social analysis, became instrumental in political debate, while Aftonbladet’s reports, characterized by human-interest journalism, helped prompt the allocation of philanthropic relief.
Copyright (c) 2024 Elisabeth Engberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
German Scholars and their readers around 1800
During the latter half of the 18th century, the doors of German universities were opened from within. Scholars abandoned Latin in favor of the vernacular and turned outward to a broader audience. Philosophers and scientists saw in the printing press a tool that would help eradicate ignorance and superstition, ultimately laying the groundwork for a better society. However, the enthusiasm was short-lived. Influential scholars increasingly lamented by the turn of the 19th century that competition for readers' attention had compromised the quality of science. Many described a situation of intellectual undercutting and warned that popular science was displacing the genuine. In "Hermeneutics for the People!", I examine the late 18th and early 19th-century German-language debate on the increasing commercialization of academic knowledge. Specifically, I analyze how one sought to stimulate demand for serious and educational literature by fostering people into good and quality-conscious readers.
Copyright (c) 2025 Peter Josephson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Surveillance, integrity and metadata in the information age
In August 1994, the Prime Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, publicly announced the formation of The Information and Communication Technology Commission. This was an advisory commission, comprised of ministers in Bildt’s government cabinet as well as invited experts and entrepreneurs. The formation of the ICT Commission has been understood as a pivotal moment in Swedish policymaking within the ICT area. However, an underappreciated part of the ICT Commission’s history is that while it is generally acknowledged that the introduction of ICT in the 1990s was positively received by political elites and intellectuals, public scepticism toward ICT was a known problem and something the commission needed to address. Inspired by the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries (STIM), developed by STS scholars Jasanoff and Kim, the ICT Commission can be interpreted as a sort of state-financed “embedding activity” meant to overcome public scepticism of perceived risks, and to gather around a common vision of the future. Starting from a STIM perspective, the aim of this article is to deepen our understanding of this period in Swedish ICT policymaking, and its consequences. Studying the way the ICT Commission addressed topics of surveillance, personal integrity and metadata is important in that it provides a new and more complex perspective on the commission’s work and its public role. The article also connects the commission’s history to contemporary discussions about surveillance cultures and asks if the Commission – in a longer perspective – can be said to have fostered a positive attitude toward data sharing.
Copyright (c) 2025 Peter Bennesved https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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Copyright (c) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0