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The Small Giant: Sweden Enters the Industrial Era . By Carl G. Gustavson. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1986. Pp. xi, 364. $23.95.

Swedish economic development has attracted international attention primarily in two respects—for its rapid and succesful industrialization in the late nineteenth century and for the emergence of its welfare state after the Second World War. Carl Gustavson seeks to trace the background of the welfare state by relating the rise of Sweden's industrial power. Furthermore, since it is a small country Sweden's industrialization may very well be depicted, according to Gustavson, by concentrating on "the flesh and blood" of history. Thus The Small Giant consists of a series of personal mini-histories, in which most of the leading characters (well known to a Swedish audience) from commerce, banking, and industry appear. By concentrating upon the personalities, the circumstantial factors, and the elements of chance, Gustavson attempts to avoid presenting history as any deus ex machina process and he certainly also adds a distinctly and rich historical flavor to his presentation. But of course the individual careers are presented within a structured comprehension of Swedish development—although Gustavson expresses some reluctance to delimit broad stages. His periodization is quite Rostovian in character. Up to the midnineteenth century preparations for a modern industrialization were made more or less haphazardly in a predominantly agrarian society. Steam engines were introduced, canals constructed, pioneering machine shops and textile mills erected. In these respects, Sweden was very much part of a European process, although on its outskirts. Key actors were the merchants, the entrepreneurs, and the technicians, who kept in touch with West European development as well as with the old Swedish tradition of industrial production. In the 1870s an industrial breakthrough occurred centered upon the railways along with steel and machinery, which also led to the bankers' replacing the merchant houses as actors in the financial sector. Around the turn of the century Sweden experienced a burst of industrial creativity and modernization of society. The so-called "genius" industries appeared, with inventors and innovators at the forefront. Across a wide range of activities Swedish enterprises moved to leading positions in technological development, giving an increasingly international orientation and expansion as well as forming a basis for the twentieth-century welfare state.