Nordic Ideology Between Religion and Scholarship

In the first half of the twentieth century, Nordic lands came to the forefront as the leaders in a form of nationalism that combined science, religion, and politics to find opposition to nearly anything else. The results fed, among other thing, ideologies in Nazi Germany. These eleven essays examine the phenomenon itself, how religion, science and ideology worked in German and Sweden, and where and how the "Nordic idea" migrated. Topics include a conceptual approximation of the notion of the Nordic idea, Nordic ideology and the SS, the Eddic Myth between academic and religious interpretations, Walter Baetke and The "Chasm of 1945," the oldest runes, Luther's views on the Jews, Sweden's reception of the Mannhem Society, a possible career path in Nordic studies in Nazi Germany, the cases of several scholars, dreams of the holy city, and the use of theories of religion in contemporary Asatru. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Horst Junginger, PD and PhD in history of religions, is currently professor of the study of religion at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich.
Andreas Akerlund, PhD in history, is research fellow and research leader at the Department of History at Uppsala University.