Freedom in Sweden: Selected Works of Erik Gustaf Geijer

Free PDF direct download complete

Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847) shared with David Hume, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and Alexis de Tocqueville a spiritual approach to human existence. Geijer well understood the wider European conversation that was taking place, but he wrote in Swedish and for Swedes. He wrote as an esteemed professor and cultural luminary.

Into the 1830s, Geijer, in his fifties, had long been regarded as a nationalist influenced by German idealism and romanticism. After age 50, Geijer’s liberalism became more pronounced. In 1838 Geijer announced to his public that he had revised his thinking and worldview and had gone over to liberalism. “An Economic Dream,” contained in this volume, is a short essay he published in 1847, shortly before his death, and it expresses Geijer’s humanism and liberalism. Whether Geijer’s new open stance in favor of liberalism was really at odds with his concern for solidifying and stabilizing the Swedish nation is a matter for consideration. Throughout his writings, Geijer gives Christianity a central place and importance, including in his essay on slavery, contained in this volume.