Books about the Great Northern War

Stefany said:

I have become quite interested in the life of king Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War. Can anyone please recommend a book about about this conflict?

I believe Charles XII was an exceptionally brave man, that hated negotiating for peace and was extremely strong-minded, that's why I really want to read more about him and the Northern War.

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Bit of an oldie by now, but Swedish historian Peter Englund's debut as a pop hist writer — "Poltava" in Swedish, and "The Battle that Shook Europe" in its English translation.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Battle-that-Shook-Europe-Poltava/dp/1780764766/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367688912&sr=1-4&keywords=peter+englund"]The Battle that Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire: Peter Englund: 9781780764764: Amazon.com: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51--E4KZr4L.@@AMEPARAM@@51--E4KZr4L[/ame]
His great inspiration for that one was John Prebble's "Culloden" from 1967.

Of course, if you want to try something really old, and in the style of national high romance of the late 19th c. (compare it to Kipling or Sienkiewicz), you could try the literarisation of Charles XII as penned by the novelist (Nobel Prize laureate 1916) Verner von Heidenstam, published in 1897-98: "The Charles Men" ("Karolinerna" in the original).
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Men-Verner-Von-Heidenstam/dp/1410204766"]Charles Men, The: Verner Von Heidenstam: 9781410204769: Amazon.com: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4185PB4GD3L.@@AMEPARAM@@4185PB4GD3L[/ame]

You can get a great many opinions about Charles XII — Boy-Hero-King, to bloodthirsty swine, and back — and it waxes and wanes with the times. The Finnish historians and authors already in the 19th c. were pretty down on him — the Russians were allowed to overrun Finland for years, and Charles wasn't seen to really care a jot. I recall a 80's Hollywood-version US TV miniseries about Peter I, where in order to make Peter appear a thoroughly Good Egg, Charles was very narratively logically portrayed as a homicidal, degenerate, social darwinist, pretty-boy. There could be something to it...

Edit:
Almost forgot... There's the super-classic of super-classics of Charles XII biographies — Voltaire's:
http://archive.org/details/voltaireshistory00voltuoft

Was he the guy that invaded Russia, and failed miserably, failed to invade Norway two times, and started an economic collapse in Sweden after his war? I think I read about him in my history class a very long time ago.
I only know Swedish books about him, though.

WinterIsComing said:

Was he the guy that invaded Russia, and failed miserably, failed to invade Norway two times, and started an economic collapse in Sweden after his war? I think I read about him in my history class a very long time ago.
I only know Swedish books about him, though.

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That was how it ended. Not how it began though.

Larrey said:

That was how it ended. Not how it began though.

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I think history judge by how it/they end. Not how it/they begin.

WinterIsComing said:

I think history judge by how it/they end. Not how it/they begin.

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And you do that by blithely ignoring the reasons or the chains of events that actually were the fundamental causes for those events. That is nothing but ignorance.

For example even your posting "Was he the guy that invaded Russia..." omits the rather crucial facts like that Russia actually invaded Sweden (together with just about every other nation neighboring Sweden) to start the war in the first place.



As to the books regarding the Great Northern War all the literature in that regard that I'm familiar with is written in Finnish so I have no real knowledge nor can i directly recommend any English language books with regards to the topic.

You could be able to find some sources in English by using probably the best academical method for utilizing the wikipedia, which is to skip the actual text content of the articles and see which sources have been cited in the articles - those should probably give at least some insight into the topic in question.

For GNW this 'method' gives for example:
Robert Frost's The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558-1721
McFarland's Warrior Kings of Sweden: The Rise of an Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Or something which seems more generic in nature like:
The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: Renaissance to Revolution, 1492-1792

However as said i have no actual knowledge of the quality of the books mentioned above.

Vaeltaja said:

And you do that by blithely ignoring the reasons or the chains of events that actually were the fundamental causes for those events. That is nothing but ignorance.

For example even your posting "Was he the guy that invaded Russia..." omits the rather crucial facts like that Russia actually invaded Sweden (together with just about every other nation neighboring Sweden) to start the war in the first place.

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Actually when it comes to Denmarks involvement in the war it was Sweden which began the invasion by providing troops for the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp who escalated decades of Danish-Holstein-Gottorp hostility in order to to seize a town nominally under Danish control. Pure provocation with the clear aim of starting a war against Denmark backed by Sweden (the Danish Frederick IV had only recently been crowned and deemed an easy target in comparison to his father Christian V).

I was aware that Sweden intervened to support the Holstein-Gottorp but what i have understood is that Denmark started the war regardless. Performing (alleged) provocations is not an act of war. Responding to them by invading is.

Gudenrath said:

Actually when it comes to Denmarks involvement in the war it was Sweden which began the invasion by providing troops for the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp who escalated decades of Danish-Holstein-Gottorp hostility in order to to seize a town nominally under Danish control. Pure provocation with the clear aim of starting a war against Denmark backed by Sweden (the Danish Frederick IV had only recently been crowned and deemed an easy target in comparison to his father Christian V).

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Well, they were Danes. By the standards of the day, we should kill those if we could, and vice versa. At least Denmark got itself some big mates for the showdown.

But one of the real accomplishements of the Great Nordic War, from a Swedish perspective, is that it ended Danish aspirations of reconquest. This rather monumental shift in the inter-nordic power realtions tends to get overlooked as everyone gets himself lost in the vastness of Russia.

WinterIsComing said:

I think history judge by how it/they end. Not how it/they begin.

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In the end Denmark had stopped being a threat, looking for reconquests, and the dynastic conflict with Poland that had plagued Sweden for a century-and-a-half had been made redundant. That's also how it ended.

Not at all. You clearly don't understand what I mean't by that. I JUST pointed out his failures. Therefor I omitted "the crucial facts" with purpose. Wouldn't call that ignorance. Also, I did not "do that by blithely ignoring the reasons or the chains of events that actually were the fundamental causes for those events." you stated that opinion like fact, now that's not ignorance, that's STUPIDITY
And don't be so hostile, friend!

WinterIsComing said:

Not at all. You clearly don't understand what I mean't by that. I JUST pointed out his failures. Therefor I omitted "the crucial facts" with purpose. Wouldn't call that ignorance. Also, I did not "do that by blithely ignoring the reasons or the chains of events that actually were the fundamental causes for those events." you stated that opinion like fact, now that's not ignorance, that's STUPIDITY
And don't be so hostile, friend!

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In Internet forums with remotely serious content it is always faster and easier to assume that other people are what they make themselves appear. Saves a lot of trouble especially since i (just like every one else) lack the ability to decipher your mood, opinion, and tone from a block of text. In short if you act like an ..... (like in all honesty, you did) then you will be taken as one because no one can understand your meaning unless you actually go out of your way to say it.

Now what? We shake hands, and apologize?
Or we continue thinking that one is a d**k and the other is an .....?

I can also recommend Peter Englund. His works are not just valuable from historical point but also very enjoyable. Not every historian have literary talent as well and Englund is one of those who does.