One man’s way of thinking about God has decisively shaped the political and economic rise of Nordic social democracy. 500 years ago, Martin Luther’s writings led to the Reformation in the Nordic countries, and his values and beliefs shaped more than just the church. Lutheranism is one of the most important influences on the Nordic welfare system and a general belief in social democracy. Indeed, Nordic social democracy itself can be seen as a modern form of religion, or “secular Lutheranism”. In Lutheranism and the Nordic Spirit of Social Democracy, Robert Nelson, an American observer and professor of political economy at the University of Maryland, brings a fresh perspective to the interrelated questions of religion, national identity, and governance in the Nordic world. Exploring how Lutheranism never went away as the true path to a new heaven on earth, Nelson shows how the form of Lutheran Nordic religion and culture changed radically, while its substance remained surprisingly unaltered.

In 1864, a large metal hoard of copper, bronze and silver objects was discovered at Pile in the southern Swedish region of Scania. The hoard has been dated to the onset of the rich Nordic Bronze Age, and emerges as the earliest, finest and one of the largest of the Nordic sacrificial deposits of metalwork in or near water. The metal hoard from Pile in Scania, Sweden provides the first detailed documentation, scientific examination and historical interpretation of the assemblage. Around 2000 BCE the site of Pile was networked with places near and the far in a manner that boosted the political economy of Southern Scandinavia, adding to an atmosphere of tensions and change -- and it made history. The chapters unfold as a ‘history from beneath’ beginning with place, things and time and concluding with metals and the worlds that intersected in Pile at the threshold of the long Bronze Age.

The year is 12,800 BP. Europe is entirely occupied by people of the so-called Upper Magdalenian culture. Well, not entirely one small region, southern Scandinavia, differs markedly from its neighbours. These lines open the first book-length treatment of the cultural evolution of late Ice Age forager societies at the northern edge of Europe. Splendid Isolation summarises more than ten years of research that connects the cataclysmic eruption of the Laacher See volcano in present-day western Germany with contemporary cultural changes. It also offers an in-depth treatment of the eruption’s impact on plants, animals and people as well as its cultural-historical consequences. Invoking the term ‘splendid isolation’, the author argues that despite the eruption’s evidently detrimental ecological impacts, it led to a regional cultural effervescence in the form of the Bromme culture. By charting this past calamity, the book also shows how the study of ancient disasters can be made useful in today’s debates of resilience, vulnerability and apocalypse.

In chapter 1, the basic assumptions of the random vibration theory are emphasized. In chapters 2 and 3, pertinent results of stochastic variables and stochastic processes have been indicated. Chapter 4 deals with the stochastic response analysis of single degrees-of-freedom, multi-degrees-of-freedom and continuous linear structural systems. In principle, an introductory course on linear structural dynamics is presupposes. However, in order to make this textbook self-contained, short reviews of the most important results of linear deterministic vibration theory have been included in the start of the relevant sub-sections. Chapter 5 outlines the reliability theory for dynamically excited building structures, i.e., reliability theory for narrowbanded response processes. Finally, Chapter 6 gives an introduction to Monte Carlo simulation methods, which become increasingly important and useful as the computers become more and more powerful.

This book interprets rhetorical style within a theoretical frame, and it aims to give a more unifying account than has been given in most publications on style. The aim is to establish the concept of rhetorical style that will not only achieve a greater conceptual consensus, but also help make it both powerful and useful in line with other concepts in the practical and critical disciplines of rhetoric. The examination of rhetorical style is aimed at conceptual development based on theoretical reflection and rhetorical analysis. The goal is to achieve a clearer understanding of some of the ways in which rhetorical style supplies the conceptual frameworks for reflecting, perceiving, arguing, and gaining influence in practical life.

The second conference report on the archaeological site of Petras, Siteia concerns the progress of research conducted about the very important and extensive cemetery of the Pre- and Proto-palatial periods in eastern Crete – one of very few excavations started in Crete in the 21st century. An international group of specialists present and discuss various aspects of the remains of the large, unplundered cemetery and the adjacent settlements traces and in contextualizing the cemetery they try to understand it in the historical, economic and political framework of Pre- and Proto-palatial Crete in general, and Eastern Crete in particular.

This fourth volume in the series examines workshops and discusses the craftspeople in the Viking town of Kaupang including their activities, crafted products, raw materials, skills and networks. The study focuses on artefacts used in on-ferrous metalworking: crucibles, moulds, matrix dies, tuyeres and a unique collection of lead models. The tools and the waste material provide a completely new understanding of the craftspeople who were working with gold, silver, copper alloys, lead and tin. These metalworkers mastered many different materials and techniques; indeed, they were well-informed, well-trained and skilful, and manufactured a range of different items for women and men. There is every reason to believe that visitors and residents perceived the non-ferrous metalworking as a defining feature of the Viking-period town. The combination of excavations and surface surveys has produced a broad and diverse collection of material very similar to finds in different Viking-period towns in Scandinavia including Ribe, Birka and Hedeby. The finds show that Kaupang was an important centre for the production of jewellery, and the craftspeople appear to have had access to a range of high quality raw materials including brass and kaolin clay. Their activity can be traced from the earliest layers of the beginning of the 9th Century to the early 10th Century, Altogether, the production waste from Kaupang illustrates how a range of different social groups were involved in the process of forging an urban identity.

Aarhus is one of the oldest and most important Danish towns, but the archaeological sources have so far not been fully analyzed. Based on excavations and finds the Aarhus and its periphery the development of the town and its network is analyzed from Viking Age to mid-1800. Central is the special urban way of living which makes town dwellers into citizens. The urban communities are in focus as well as their challenges: division between town and countryside, but also social divisions of the towns people, and between newcomers and born and bred citizens.

The purpose of this volume is to present current problems and approaches in Palaeolithic and Mesolitic archaeology and to provide ideas for future studies and debates. 14 contributions divided into four sections: Palaiolithic and Mesolitihic methodology; Choices and restraints in field archaeology; Dynamic perspectices on the Stone Age hunter-gatherer record, and The rituals and their artefacts: Approaching the Mesolitihic world.

Dolmens are some of Denmark’s oldest and most impressive ancient monuments. These more than 5000-year-old stone structures stand as intriguing testimony to the architectural skill of the Neolithic population. Based on new research results, a comprehensive account is given of the origins of dolmens, their original appearance and development and their function. The book is written by archaeologists Palle Eriksen, Ringkøbing-Skjern Museum, and Niels H. Andersen, Moesgaard Museum. Professor Chris Scarre, University of Durham, has contributed a chapter on the dolmens of Britain, France and Ireland.

The articles in this number of Romantik include new research on reverie and dream as the locus of metaphor in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound; an enquiry into the Royal Swedish Society for the Publication of Manuscripts Relating to Scandinavian History and the role it played in the construction of national memory and heritage; a discussion of Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg’s and John Martin’s iconographies of the sublime in the intersection between art and popular visual spectacle; archival discoveries related to the publication of medieval romance in early nineteenth-century Britain; and a reassessment of The Prelude as a formation narrative, arguing that William Wordsworth displays a conflicted attitude to the growth and progress usually found in the Bildungsroman. The journal also contains reviews of new books on the romantic period published in the Nordic countries.

Chalkis Aitolias III is the third and final report of the Danish/Greek archaeological field work in Chalkis Aitolias situated near the present-day village of Kato Vasiliki, between Mesolonghi and Naupaktos on the south coast of Aitolia. Excavations were conducted at Aghia Tridia in seven campaigns from 1995-2001. This volume focuses on the dating, construction and re-construction of the considerable terrace-and fortification walls on Aghia Triada and the excavations of the Late Classical and early Hellenistic workshops and storerooms on the north-east side of the mound. Furthermore, this volume covers scientific analysis of the general topography and fortification systems including various studies of the different time periods, geological investigations and examples of finds. Many scholars have added their field research to this volume, which is edited by Soren Dietz and Lazaros Kolonas.

Every second throughout life, billions of sodium-potassium pumps enable the human muscle cells to function. The pump is an enzyme found in the plasma membrane of all animal cells and is an important example of active transport. The Na+, K+-pumps keep us going by pumping sodium out of cells while pumping potassium into cells and without them, we would not survive. Addressed to specialists in the field of biomedicine, the author presents a thorough overview of his scientific results over more than 40 years. The book is richly illustrated and seeks to explain how a single molecule creates the required conditions for our muscles to work.

Even in well-established democratic societies, the political system currently faces a crisis of civic engagement and participation. Increasingly, this lack of engagement and the accompanying erosion of institutional legitimacy result in antidemocratic, populist currents gaining ground.It is an important challenge for both the humanities and the social sciences to analyse this crisis and discuss possible answers that may contribute to strengthening the position of the democratic public sphere in the political process, thus emphasising the crucial role of civic engagement and participation in renewing democracy. The articles in this volume seek the sources for such democratic innovations in a variety of existing, less formalised practices and experiences in public space: in citizens' forums and other concrete arenas for democratic debate and participation in the media in general, including social media and other digital platforms; in social movements; and in artistic interventions in the public sphere.The volume presents selected and edited papers and keynote lectures from the international research conference The Democratic Public Sphere - Current Challenges and Prospects, which was held at Aarhus University on November 5-7, 2015. It includes contributions by keynote speakers Mark E. Warren, Nick Couldry, Donatella della Porta, and Stephen Duncombe.

This book presents a comprehensive and systematic description of the underlying pedagogy inherent in doctoral supervision and its institutional context. It argues that doctoral supervision relies on an advanced form of pedagogy that is often tacit for both students and supervisors. The target audience for this book includes doctoral supervisors and students, people conducting research and developmental work in the field of doctoral education, and stakeholders and intellectual leaders in a broader academic context. The author of this book presents the results of an extensive study of the research on doctoral supervision and education together with his own empirical findings from qualitative observation and interview studies at both Danish and British universities.

The present book comprises thirteen chapters written by Nordic scholars in the human and social sciences, and developed out of conference papers presented at regular winter and summer symposia held by two research groups emanating from the Nordic Summer University. Born within and informed by this specific milieu, the chapters address significant sociopolitical implications for contemporary societies emerging from the ethical reflections of leading 20th century thinkers (e.g. Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas), important procedural as well as substantive aspects of democracy, and pivotal ethico-political issues arising from the abstract logic and concrete manifestations of market economies. Though by no means devoid of their own economic, cultural and political problems, the Nordic countries are still paramount examples of humane prosperity, democratic civility, environmentally sound policy, and peaceful resolution of social and industrial conflicts. Year after year, if not decade after decade, they keep topping the international charts for socio-economic indicators about sostainable development, healthcare quality and accessibility, educational levels, crime control, preceived happiness and much else. As such, the scholarly and scientific reflections orginating within the Nordic Summer University might prove to be useful sources of insight for policy-makers, intellectuals and interested persons outside the Nordic context, and not solely inside it.