In 1919, the Ford Motor Company – the world’s largest automobile manufacturer – decided to make a small Nordic country its bridgehead to continental Europe. Denmark was a good choice geographically and because of the country’s favourable customs policy. During the 1920s, Ford’s iconic Model T was assembled in Copenhagen, with large quantities exported from there to most of north-eastern Europe. The innovative manufacturing technology employed in Copenhagen was the same as that used in Ford’s American assembly plants, and the Copenhagen plant was actually designed by Albert Kahn – the architect behind Ford’s famous Highland Park factory in Detroit, Michigan. The Danish Ford Motor Company successfully continued production throughout the recession of the 1930s, the German occupation of Denmark in 1940–1945 and the Cold War and economic boom of the 1950s. The Copenhagen factory closed in 1966, obliged to give way to Ford’s larger operations elsewhere in Europe. Henry Ford’s pioneering principles of mass production went beyond mere technology. The large-scale serial manufacturing of uniform products was also a way of fulfilling his vision of an affluent consumer society. But as Fordism was relocated across the Atlantic, the rigorous discipline and fast-paced work routines applied in Detroit were challenged by local traditions, shifting market conditions and, most notably, a labour movement that was far more powerful than its American counterpart. Between Denmark and Detroit offers a detailed history of the Danish Ford Motor Company, but the book also has a wider scope, elucidating the concept of Fordism and how it was transformed by its move across the Atlantic. Lars K. Christensen holds a PhD in history. He is the author of several publications on labour history and industrial heritage. Presently, he is head of research and cultural heritage at the ROMU museums group.

The Core of Learning presents the philosophical framework of N.F.S. Grundtvig’s educational, poetic, theological, and political writings. In each of these fields he made a major contribution to the formation of modern Denmark. He situates humanity in the wider background of creation and nature, and in his alternative programme of enlightenment he focuses on the core and advance of Learning in the history of human civilization, and the role of emotions for all philosophical reflection. As part of its agenda to digitalise and translate Grundtvig’s vast output, the Grundtvig Study Centre at Aarhus University is pleased to publish this fifth volume in the series, ‘N.

In the First Millennium BC present-day Italy was inhabited by many different ethnic groups, most of which spoke a language affiliated with Latin. Sardinia, a large island to the West of the Italian mainland, had a culture characterized by nuraghs, a kind of massive stone tower, presumably for defense purposes. Many finds of bronze statuettes of warriors show the concern of the population to protect themselves from aggressors, also with divine support secured by impressive priestesses. However, Rome’s closest neighbours to the North were the Etruscans, who spoke a language quite different from any other people in Italy. For a long period Etruscan kings ruled the Romans who, however, liberated themselves from the foreigners and, in reverse, started to conquer their territory. Gradually, from about the Sixth Century BC to about 100 BC, the Romans came to dominate the Etruscans as well as the ethnic groups we call the Italics. But, apart from the military conflict, from which the Romans emerged victorious they were in many ways influenced by the Etruscans, whose prevalence in the field of religion and art they admired. Actually, they welcomed cultural exchange. A striking example is that the Romans invited a famous Etruscan artist to decorate their most important temple, dedicated to Jupiter, on the Capitol Hill. The Etruscan excellence in bronze casting has left a rich heritage of bronze sculpture. Statues and statuettes were used as gifts for the gods in sanctuaries both in Etruria and Rome, as well as in many other parts of Italy.

The Nordic model rests on two pillars: the social safety net and the provision of services like education, childcare, and healthcare for all. It can also be characterized as an “employment model,” since its financial viability depends upon a high labor participation rate with very few working poor. Economist Torben M. Andersen lays out the model’s structure and highlights factors important for understanding its economic performance. He then looks into specific policy areas based on Denmark’s experiences and addresses the challenges arising from new technologies and globalization.

Rising inequality is one of the most prominent characteristics of the modern age of globalized economies. To some observers, inequality is a natural consequence of economic growth that ought to be accepted to ensure a prosperous future. To others, rising inequality is a cause for alarm—not just because it is unfair, but also because, as Pope Francis has said, “inequality is the root of social evil. ” By most measures, the Nordic countries consistently rank among the best not only when it comes to equality, but also when it comes to business friendliness. Political scientist Carsten Jensen delves into what is exceptional about equality in the region, and outlines “the four equalities” that set it apart: economic (the distance between the poor and rich is relatively low), inter-generational (success in life is not dependent on the status of one’s parents), gender (women are highly integrated into the labor market and independent from the family), and health (the poor have access to the same medical treatments as the well-off). All four types of equalities have their origins in unique political settlements made in the 20th century. The resulting special social market economies of these countries affect their growth and levels of equality even today.

An equestrian burial from the 10th century with an exceptionally elaborate horse harness was discovered at Fregerslev near Skanderborg in eastern Jutland, Denmark in 2012. This formed the starting point for the Fregerslev Research Project initiated by Museum Skanderborg in 2017. Two years later, the museum held a conference to present the preliminary results of the project. A group of researchers from neighbouring countries were invited to provide a wider international context for a discussion of the social, political, cultural and religious background of the Fregerslev burial. With 21 articles, Horse and Rider in the late Viking Age presents the outcome of the conference. Part I describes the excavation of the Fregerslev burial and its contents. The finds, particularly the harness fittings and the remains of a quiver of arrows, and the results of a wide range of scientific analyses demonstrate what a remarkable burial this once was. The excavation methods and documentation procedures, the sampling strategies, and the following conservation and preservation of the finds, give an idea of the many new approaches, which may be useful when dealing with a decomposed grave in the future. Part II and Part III present new research on 10th-century equestrian burials and their significance in contemporary society from a variety of countries across Central and Northern Europe.

Stories of gods, heroes and monsters permeated discourses of national selfhood in the nineteenth century. During this tumultuous time, Europe’s modern nations arose from the misty waters of long-forgotten national pasts – or so was the perception at the time. Each embedded in their particular national and political contexts, towering cultural figures – N. F.S. Grundtvig, Jacob Grimm, Jonás Halgrímsson, William Morris, Adam Oehlenschläger and many more – were catalysts for the formation of national discourses of belonging, built upon the mythological story-worlds of Europe’s non-classical vernacular pasts. This interdisciplinary book offers new perspectives on the uses of pre-Christian mythologies in the formation of national communities in nineteenth-century Northern and Western Europe. Through theoretical articles and case studies, it puts forth new understandings of how cultural thinkers across Europe utilized pre-Christian mythologies as symbolic resources in the forging of national communities. Perceptions of national identity were thus shaped, many of which are still at play today.

The history of modern design and architecture has seen many attempts to embrace and merge different art forms, and to bring art into the framing of everyday life and the organisation of modern society, in a process understood as total design or total architecture. These attempts were historically based on the romanticist idea of merging all art forms into a uniting and transgressing work of art, mostly associated with – but certainly not limited to – Richard Wagner’s theoretical writings and musical dramas. This utopian dream of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or Total Work of Art, was intended both to bring unity to the people and to bring art into the everyday life of their homes, as well as into factories, cities and even modern media. As a result, the experiments ranged from music, poetry and drama to architecture, design, visual communication and city-planning. These ideas of merging art forms into more immersive and transgressive installations or design interventions to change everyday life are widespread today, but their complex and often problematic roots are mostly ignored. Design and architecture have delivered some of the broadest and most influential experiments with the Gesamtkunstwerk, from garden cities for workers and corporate identity design to the German AEG corporation.

This book has two main objectives - to provide an overview of Danish research in the Afghan province of Nuristan, as well as to understand the scholar, collector, and man, Lennart Edelberg, who was crucial to its shaping. Ethnography as an academic discipline in Denmark was still in its embryonic stages, when Edelberg visited Nuristan for the first time in 1948 as a member of the Third Danish Expedition to Central Asia (1947-52). Parallel to his work as an upper-secondary schoolteacher in Ribe, Edelberg developed his work in Nuristan throughout the following decades. Through different perspectives from people who worked with him, or shared his research interests, the contributions to this book constitute a mosaic. This mosaic represents Lennart Edelberg, his research interests as well as their legacy for contemporary scholarship.

Many experts attribute the Nordic region’s high levels of happiness to factors such as greater relative national wealth, wellfunctioning institutions, or the welfare state model. Instead, economist Christian Bjørnskov argues that the true key to national happiness is social trust — the ability to trust other people one does not know personally. The populations in three of the five Nordic countries are also characterized by a very strong sense of personal freedom. These two factors contribute to a fuller and richer life. Bjørnskov ends by discussing to what extent these elements can be exported to other parts of the world.

Son of Spinoza sheds light on the interconnectedness between Jewishness and cosmopolitanism in the oeuvre of the Danish-Jewish intellectual Georg Brandes (1842-1927). Today, the historical tradition of interconnecting these concepts has largely been forgotten, although the construction of a somewhat synonymous relation between them became a key structuring element of modern antisemitism and later Nazi ideology. In this context, Georg Brandes–his writing and practice–stands as a crucial European cosmopolitan archive, due to the great influence he enjoyed throughout the European continent. Son of Spinoza challenges the presentation of Brandes in previous research as a so-called assimilated Jew who distanced himself from Jewishness, instead recognizing Brandes’ own self-identification as a Spinozist cosmopolitan and his depiction of himself and other modern Jews as ‘sons of Spinoza’.

Philosophy originates in wonder that generates sensitive thinking, also called ‘aesthetic thinking’—an expanded mode of thought that bridges and dissolves contradictions. This book questions the disregard for such thinking in modern society, including the neglect of it in most educational institutions and contemporary research. It describes what it means to think in an aesthetic way when ‘aesthetic’ is synonymous with ‘sensitive’ (not ‘sensuous’), including how such thinking may foster human well-being and develop our notions of history, hospitality, freedom, and the good life. The formative nature of aesthetic thinking is presented alongside the attestation of its relevance in many disciplines and a broad spectrum of society—in border studies, education policy, and social work, and in life in general. Poetic Inclinations: Ethics, History, Philosophy is related to the simultaneously published monograph Imaginative Moods: Aesthetics, Religion, Philosophy. Together they constitute a comprehensive presentation in English of the author’s philosophy of experience, which includes new ways of conceiving of and applying aesthetics, hermeneutics, and phenomenology, and of integrating these disciplines, as well as theology.

Following modern and postmodern philosophy’s critique of metaphysics, experiences of transcendence are often considered ‘aesthetic’ rather than ‘metaphysical.’ However, aesthetics is mostly identified with the study of art, and aesthetic phenomena are considered particularly sensuous. This book criticizes such an approach to aesthetics, which has led many philosophers and theologians to neglect or reject aesthetics as a philosophical or theological discipline. It demonstrates how contemporary philosophy and theology may benefit from studying the mind-opening and world-transformative nature of our experiences of transcendence. In addition, it presents the significance of such experiences for the understanding of, for example, art, faith, prayer, presence, beauty, sensitivity, imagination, receptivity, and divinity. Imaginative Moods: Aesthetics, Religion, Philosophy is related to the simultaneously published monograph Poetic Inclinations: Ethics, History, Philosophy. Together they constitute a comprehensive presentation in English of the author’s philosophy of experience, which includes new ways of conceiving of and applying aesthetics, hermeneutics, and phenomenology, and of integrating these disciplines, as well as theology.

In 2006, Claus Feveile published Det ældste Ribe [The earliest Ribe], launching the publication series Ribe Studier [Ribe Studies]. The goal of that series was to make the core archaeological evidence from excavations in the town of Ribe between 1984 and 2000 accessible to the scholarly world and to give an account of Ribe’s special status in the archaeological landscape of Denmark and northern Europe. Ribe 700-1050: From Emporium to Civitas in Southern Scandinavia is volume 2 in Ribe Studies. The main text here provides a comprehensive presentation and analysis of the archaeology of the town through to the end of the Viking Period. Alongside that, the book has a major topographical section which discusses West Jutland in this period and the connexions between Ribe and the hinterland of the town. In addition, a concluding chapter discusses the origin of towns in southern Scandinavia.

This book investigates how the emergence of the Arctic as a new geopolitical arena affects and reshapes the area known as the North Atlantic: Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and coastal Norway. The relationship between the center of the former Danish empire and its subordinates have rested on (varying degrees of) asymmetric power relations, that are intertwined with political as well as emotional bonds. With climate change a whole new reality is emerging in the Arctic and sub-Arctic areas. Power is moving north, and new connections and partnerships are being developed. As the North Atlantic countries share a history as being part of a Danish empire, some of the hierarchies and mindsets inherited from the past still affect the present. This calls for an in-depth understanding of the cultural history of the North Atlantic as well as current relations. What narratives make up the foundation for contemporary cooperation? How are historical relations and narratives being reinterpreted today? How do postcolonial relations affect decision-making concerning natural resources? How do North Atlantic communities envision the future? A team of historians, literary theorists, art historians, ethno - graphers and culture and communication scholars with profound insight into the histories, languages and cultures of the North Atlantic have collaborated on this study of the North Atlantic countries as an emerging new center in the North. Foundations that made this publication possible:Carlsberg Foundation

The Viking Congresses bring together scholars of archaeology, philology, history, toponymy, numismatics and a number of other disciplines to discuss the Viking Age from a variety of viewpoints. This volume contains 44 peer-reviewed papers selected from those presented at the 18th Viking Congress held in Denmark in August 2017. The contributors take up the interdisciplinary challenge, and the papers cover a wide range of subjects, rooted in the past, but also connecting to the present.