For fourteen thousand years, people have hunted, grown food, built, struggled and loved in what is today called Sverige Sweden. The way this once so barren area at the edge of northern Europes ice cover became one of the richest and most developed countries in the world, is in my opinion an exciting story. So now I have tried to write the history of this country where war has often been the normal state of affairs, where peace has been the exception, and of its people who have survived all difficulties, who have never ceased to dream and today are involved in planning the future of Europe. Herman Lindqvist -