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Atlantis Restored

Atlantis Restored After success in the Thirty Years’ War, elites in Sweden realized that the nation had to establish a new economic base to support its newfound geopolitical prominence. Drawing on the Pan-European natural-knowledge-based political economy, Swedish reformers developed a version uniquely applicable to the nation’s challenges and opportunities. At the center of this new political economy was the use of scientific knowledge to transform nature into usable wealth. Whether physics, alchemy, mechanics, or botany, any form of knowledge with the power to transform nature through mining, agriculture, or manufacturing was considered valuable. Drawing on either Paracelsian spiritual ideas or those of Cartesian materialism, Swedish improvement thinkers sought to penetrate deep into the inner life of nature and thereby unlock the storehouse of wealth that God had placed therein. This article traces how Johan Risingh, Urban Hiärne, Christopher Polhem, and Carl Linnaeus, in conversation with foreign improvers, combined knowledge of the natural world with commercial considerations to form a discourse they hoped would enable Sweden to embark on a trajectory of economic growth and thereby restore its mythical glory as the cradle of European civilization. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The American Historical Review Oxford University Press

Atlantis Restored

Wennerlind, Carl
The American Historical Review , Volume 127 (4): 28 – Jan 24, 2023
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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
ISSN
0002-8762
eISSN
1937-5239
DOI
10.1093/ahr/rhac419
Publisher site
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Abstract

After success in the Thirty Years’ War, elites in Sweden realized that the nation had to establish a new economic base to support its newfound geopolitical prominence. Drawing on the Pan-European natural-knowledge-based political economy, Swedish reformers developed a version uniquely applicable to the nation’s challenges and opportunities. At the center of this new political economy was the use of scientific knowledge to transform nature into usable wealth. Whether physics, alchemy, mechanics, or botany, any form of knowledge with the power to transform nature through mining, agriculture, or manufacturing was considered valuable. Drawing on either Paracelsian spiritual ideas or those of Cartesian materialism, Swedish improvement thinkers sought to penetrate deep into the inner life of nature and thereby unlock the storehouse of wealth that God had placed therein. This article traces how Johan Risingh, Urban Hiärne, Christopher Polhem, and Carl Linnaeus, in conversation with foreign improvers, combined knowledge of the natural world with commercial considerations to form a discourse they hoped would enable Sweden to embark on a trajectory of economic growth and thereby restore its mythical glory as the cradle of European civilization.

Journal

The American Historical Review – Oxford University Press

Published: Jan 24, 2023

Keywords: Sweden; economy; economics; environment; natural history; natural knowledge; modernization; intellectual; science; capitalism

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