Identity, interest, and action : a cultural explanation of Sweden's intervention in the Thirty Years War
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Identity, interest, and action : a cultural explanation of Sweden's intervention in the Thirty Years War
(Cambridge cultural social studies)
Cambridge University Press, 1996
Available at 4 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-233) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book offers an original combination of cultural and narrative theory with an empirical study of identity and political action. It is at once a powerful critique of rational choice theories of action and a solution to the historiographical puzzle of why Sweden went to war in 1630. Erik Ringmar argues that people act not only for reasons of interest, but also for reasons of identity, and that the latter are, in fact, more fundamental. Deploying his alternative, non-rational theory of action in his account of the Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years War, he shows it to have been an attempt on behalf of the Swedish leaders to gain recognition for themselves and their country. Further to this, he demonstrates the importance of questions of identity to the study of war and of narrative theories of action to the social sciences in general.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the beginning of the story
- Part I. A Narrative Theory of Action: 1. Historical and scientific explanations
- 2. The modern orthodoxy
- 3. A narrative theory of action
- Part II. Why Did Sweden Go to War in 1630?: 4. Historical and cultural preliminaries
- 5. Fighting for a national interest
- 6. Fighting for a national identity
- Conclusion: the end of the story?
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index.
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