Scandinavia has long been considered the periphery of Europe. Nordin's book demands a reevaluation of this understanding as it explores a multifocal early modern world whose constituents, be they political entities, individual actors, or cultural attributes, are entangled materially, socially, politically, and culturally. The work seeks to disentangle that world from an archaeological perspective, and material culture, particularly that of metal, is a central theme. However, Nordin integrates archaeology with historical documentation, microhistory, and biography to reveal connections between people, spaces, and things, thus demonstrating Scandinavia's important role in the development of the modern world. Throughout Nordin's book, metal forms links that stretch from Scandinavia, through Europe, to India, Africa, and North America. Scandinavian silver, iron, and copper motivated economic development, migration, politics, exploration, colonization, encounters, and connections and propelled profound social, cultural, and environmental change.
Chapter 1 situates Scandinavia in the early modern world and lays out the author's major themes: colonialism, globalization, and modernity. Nordin works to counter what has been called the methodical nationalism present in much traditional history and archaeology by exposing the complex global intertwinings and connections formed by European colonialization and transglobal trade. The following chapters present a series of interrelated case studies through which metal, people, and ideas travel and engage with one another. In chapter 2, Nordin demonstrates the simultaneous interconnectedness of Scandinavia and its outward-facing global engagement by tracing the story of Danish nobleman Ove Gjedde and his involvement with the Danish colony in Tranquebar, India, and the Norwegian silver industry.
The third chapter further develops the impacts of metal, mining, and industrial production by examining mine owners, production facilities in Scandinavia, laborers, and the spatial and economic effects of production, people, and landscapes. Nordin illustrates these effects by studying a family of Dutch immigrants employed as charcoal burners in the metal industry, and their employers, the De Geer family. In the process, the author tells an important story about migrant labor in the early modern period and traces widespread networks that were essential to the business and political dealings of merchants and the nobility. Metal's enmeshment with the social, political, and environmental is further elaborated upon in a chapter that tells the story of the Servio and Momma-Reenstierna families, immigrants from Holland who developed the copper and silver industries in the far northern region of Sápmi, where Nordin reveals the involvement of Dutch, Swedes, Finns, and Sámi in an economic enterprise with global reach.
Chapter 5 moves to the North American colony of New Sweden and explores the material and cultural interaction of the Swedish colonists and Indigenous Americans. The biographies of a Swedish pastor, the governor, and the leader of the Indigenous American Lenape illustrate the strategies employed by these groups for survival in a rapidly changing world. The Swedish colony in West Africa run by the De Geers consortium is the subject of chapter 6. Here, Nordin introduces individual Swedes and Africans to show how people and cultures from both continents were changed through their contact and how these transformed individuals impacted people and institutions in distant parts of the globe. Danish colonial expansion into the Caribbean and its role in the slave trade is the focus of chapter 7. Finally, Nordin concludes with a chapter on the continuing social and environmental impacts of the early modern Scandinavian metal industry, colonialism, and trade.
Nordin's scholarship and range of sources are impressive. His argument is complex but ultimately persuasive. However, nothing is perfect. His reliance on Weber overemphasizes the Protestant nature of many developments, and he ignores the larger European, or even global, cultural and intellectual context. Indeed, at times this text about connections seems oddly disconnected from its larger historical context, and in focusing so closely on Scandinavia, Nordin risks substituting historical regionalism for nationalism. Nevertheless, this is an impressive and important work because it succeeds in demonstrating just how entangled the early modern world was and in suggesting renewed strategies for future scholarship.
