National Wealth, Income and the History of Economic Growth: Finland from the Late 19th Century until the Second World War [Hardcover]

Despite its current dominant status, economic growth emerged as a field of study and as a political objective only after the Second World War. This book provides an alternative perspective to the Anglo-centric historical analysis of growth by turning the focus on Finland and other Nordic countries from the late 19th Century until?WWII.

 &this is a pioneer study on the political economy of growth discourse during the 19th and 20th century in Finland situated at the tumultuous crossroads between Western and Eastern Europe.

- Lars Magnusson, Uppsala University.

Heikki Mikkonen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki and a researcher at the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. He holds a PhD in History from Tampere University. His current research projects explore invocation and contestation of expert knowledge in political discourses and aim at a comprehensive mapping of scientific life in the republic of Finland since 1918.

Despite its current dominant status, economic growth emerged as a field of study and as a political objective only after the Second World War. This book provides an alternative perspective to the Anglo-centric historical analysis of growth by turning the focus on Finland and other Nordic countries from the late 19th century until the Second World War. Moreover, it provides a conceptual history perspective to how economic growth can be examined before the emergence of economic growth as a concept.

This book places Finland in the context of emerging nation-states of the early 20th-century Europe and constructs five competing growth conceptions: classical liberal, agrarian conservative, social liberal, social democratic, and communist. With a methodology deril³.