Identity, Interest and Action: A Cultural Explanation of Sweden's Intervention in the Thirty Years War

by Erik Ringmar

Overview

This book offers an original combination of cultural and narratological analysis with an empirical study of identity and political action. A powerful critique of rational choice theory, it also provides a solution to the historiographical puzzle of why Sweden intervened in The Thirty Years' War. Arguing that people act for reasons of identity, more fundamental than reasons of interest, Erik Ringmar shows the Swedish intervention to have been an attempt on behalf of Swedish leaders to gain recognition for themselves and their country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521026031
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/27/2008
Series:	Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.63(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

"Erik Ringmar has done a neat job of comparing rational-choice models of decision making with cultural ones in Identity, Interest and Action....this is a powerful little study, smoothly written and tightly argued that sheds light on many different areas of sociology." James M. Jasper, Contemporary Sociology

From the Publisher