Journal articles on the topic 'Socialism – Greece – History'

Modern German thought owed much to classical Greece. Yet in philosophy and theology, beginning with Hegel and his contemporaries, the debt to Platonic idealism was radically modified by insistence on the reality of history. Construed dialectically, history became a key to overcoming difficulties with both Platonic and Cartesian dualism left unresolved by Kant. In theology, after World War I dialectical theologians, including Barth and Tillich, embraced in varying degrees the existentialists' critique of Hegelian essentialism and belief in progress. This affected how they understood incarnation in christology, sacramental presence in ecclesiology, and Christian responses to what they saw as the demonic threat of German National Socialism. Anglo-American critics, especially of Tillich, often miss the dialectical nuances of his admittedly abstract theology and his religious socialist response to Marxism.

The 4th of August regime in Greece under Ioannis Metaxas has long been treated by theories of ‘generic fascism’ as a minor example of authoritarianism or at most a case of failed fascism. This derives from the ideas that the Metaxas dictatorship did not originate from any original mass ‘fascist’ movement, lacked a genuinely fascist revolutionary ideological core and its figurehead came from a deeply conservative-military background. In addition, the regime balanced the introduction ‘from above’ of certain ‘fascist’ elements (inspired by the regimes in Germany, Italy and Portugal) with a pro-British foreign policy and a strong deference to both the Crown and the church/religion. Nevertheless, in this chapter, I argue that the 4th of August regime should be relocated firmly within the terrain of fascism studies. The establishment and consolidation of the regime in Greece reflected a much wider process of political and ideological convergence and hybridisation between anti-democratic/anti-liberal/anti-socialist conservative forces, on the one hand, and radical rightwing/fascist politics, on the other. It proved highly receptive to specific fascist themes and experiments (such as the single youth organisation, called EON), which it transplanted enthusiastically into its own hybrid of ‘radicalised’ conservatism. Although far less ideologically ‘revolutionary’ compared to Italian Fascism or German National Socialism, the 4th of August regime’s radicalisation between 1936 and 1941 marked a fundamental departure from conventional conservative-authoritarian politics in a direction charted by the broader fascist experience in Europe.

The end of the twentieth century was marked by a sense of closure for many in the West. The Cold War was over, Western democracy had triumphed, and the future of neoliberalist capitalism seemed secure. The ‘end of history’, as Francis Fukuyama prematurely called it was, of course, short lived.1The new century ushered in a series of economic and political crises that have shakenfin-de-sièclecomplacency to its core. Events ranging from the banking crisis of 2008 and the economic collapse of countries such as Greece to recent scandals surrounding ‘fake news’ and the activities of organizations like Cambridge Analytica have posed serious challenges to the primacy of neoliberalism, capitalism, and contemporary democratic processes. At the same time, the rise of far-right extremism and populism has resulted in bewildering shifts to the political discourses of both Europe and the United States. One response to these unsettling changes has been a resurgence of leftist politics. Over a century after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and fifty years on from the protests of 1968, socialist ideals have found a renewed impetus in the rise of movements such as Occupy, Podemos, Syriza, and grassroots support for politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn.

Cristina A. Bejan, Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania: The Criterion Association, Cham, Switzer land: Palgrave, 2019, 323 pp., €74.89 (hardback), ISBN 978-3-030-20164-7.Chiara Bonfiglioli, Women and Industry in the Balkans: The Rise and Fall of the Yugoslav Textile Sector, London: I. B. Tauris, 2020, 232 pp., £85 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-78533-598-3.Aslı Davaz, Eşitsiz kız kardeşlik, uluslararası ve Ortadoğu kadın hareketleri, 1935 Kongresi ve Türk Kadın Birliği (Unequal sisterhood, international and Middle Eastern women’s movements, 1935 Congress and the Turkish Women’s Union), İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası, 2014, 892 pp., with an introduction by Yıldız Ecevit, pp. xxi–xxviii; preface by the author, pp. xxix–xlix, TL 42 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-605-332-296-2.Biljana Dojčinović and Ana Kolarić, eds., Feministički časopisi u Srbiji: Teorija, aktivizam i umetničke prakse u 1990-im i 2000-im (Feminist periodicals in Serbia: Theory, activism, and artistic practice in the 1990s and 2000s), Belgrade: Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, 2018, 370 pp., price not listed (paperback), ISBN: 978-86-6153-515-4.Melanie Ilic, ed., The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 572 pp., $239 (e-book) ISBN: 978-1-137-54904-4; ISBN: 978-1-137-54905-1.Luciana M. Jinga, ed., The Other Half of Communism: Women’s Outlook, in History of Communism in Europe, vol. 8, Bucharest: Zeta Books, 2018, 348 pp., USD 40 (paperback), ISBN: 978-606-697-070-9.Teresa Kulawik and Zhanna Kravchenko, eds., Borderlands in European Gender Studies: Beyond the East-West Frontier, New York: Routledge, 2020, 264 pp., $140.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-367-25896-2.Jill Massino, Ambiguous Transitions: Gender, the State, and Everyday Life in Socialist and Postsocialist Romania, New York: Berghahn Books, 2019, 466 pp., USD 122 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-785-33598-3.Gergana Mircheva, (A)normalnost i dostap do publichnostta: Socialnoinstitucionalni prostranstva na biomedicinskite discursi v Bulgaria (1878–1939) ([Ab]normality and access to publicity: Social-institutional spaces of biomedicine discourses in Bulgaria [1878–1939]), Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, 2018, 487 pp., BGN 16 (paperback), ISBN: 978-954-07-4474-2.Milutin A. Popović, Zatvorenice, album ženskog odeljenja Požarevačkog kaznenog zavoda sa statistikom (1898) (Prisoners, the album of the women’s section of Požarevac penitentiary with statistics, 1898), edited by Svetlana Tomić, Belgrade: Laguna , 2017, 333 pp., RSD 894 (paperback), ISBN: 978-86-521-2798-6.Irena Protassewicz, A Polish Woman’s Experience in World War II: Conflict, Deportation and Exile, edited by Hubert Zawadzki, with Meg Knott, translated by Hubert Zawadzki, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, xxv pp. + 257 pp., £73.38 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-3500-7992-2.Zilka Spahić Šiljak, ed., Bosanski labirint: Kultura, rod i liderstvo (Bosnian labyrinth: Culture, gender, and leadership), Sarajevo and Zagreb: TPO Fondacija and Buybook, 2019, xii + 213 pp., no price listed (paperback), ISBN: 978-9926-422-16-5.Gonda Van Steen, Adoption, Memory and Cold War Greece: Kid pro quo?, University of Michigan Press, 2019, 350 pp., $85.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-472-13158-7.D imitra Vassiliadou, Ston tropiko tis grafi s: Oikogeneiakoi desmoi kai synaisthimata stin astiki Ellada (1850–1930) (The tropic of writing: Family ties and emotions in modern Greece [1850–1930]), Athens: Gutenberg, 2018, 291 pp., 16.00 € (paperback), ISBN: 978-960-01-1940-4.Radina Vučetić, Coca-Cola Socialism: Americanization of Yugoslav Culture in the Sixties, English translation by John K. Cox, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2018, 334 pp., €58.00 (paperback), ISBN: 978-963-386-200-1.Nancy M. Wingfield, The World of Prostitution in Late Imperial Austria, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, xvi + 272 pp., $80 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-19880-165-8.Anastasia Lakhtikova, Angela Brintlinger, and Irina Glushchenko, eds., Seasoned Socialism: Gender and Food in Late Soviet Everyday Life, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019, xix + 373 pp., $68.41(hardback), ISBN: 978-0-253-04095-4.

Talk of human rights is, currently, nearly as ubiquitous as talk of globalisation. While globalisation has been described as ‘the most over used and under specified term in the international policy sciences since the end of the Cold War’, the same could reasonably be said of ‘human rights’. Human rights are a product of the immediate aftermath of World War II, and thus they developed, in their contemporary form, in the context of the Cold War. The philosophical and political roots of human rights, of course, date back at least to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and some would say even further, to the Stoics of Ancient Greece. Globalisation, too, has unfolded mainly in the late twentieth-century and has reached a position of prominence in the post-Cold War context; at this juncture, and according to popular perception, the spread of market capitalism, Western culture and modern technology fit comfortably with the death of socialism and the ‘end of history’. But globalisation too has roots that date back much earlier – as early as, it has been argued, the fourteenth century.

Pasok's Eight Year-Old Socialist Administration, The first in Greek history, which followed its successive victories in 1981 and 1985, was due to undergo its third electoral test in mid-1989. In fact, the electoral campaign had started in the late summer of 1988 and was well under way at the beginning of the new year. Andreas Papandreou's charismatic leadership of PASOK, which in the past had been the principal explanation of his firm control of events, was already starting to fade, as he struggled to put a brave face on the resignations of respected ministers and party members in the wake of revelations of several scandals at the top of the pyramid. Foremost among these was the celebrated case of George Koskotas, the young owner of the Bank of Crete, who was in gaol in America after his escape from Greece, to avoid charges of embezzling more than £130 million in bank deposits. In mid-March, Time magazine's cover story showing Koskotas behind bars was entitled: ‘The Looting of Greece: a fallen tycoon charges Papandreou with stealing millions’. This caused the resignation of Agamemnon Koutsoyorgas, Papandreou's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice, when Koskotas claimed he had credited him with $2 million in a Swiss bank account. He also stated that Papandreou had authorized this payment and had himself been on the payroll.

This paper deals with the migration practices of a Georgian population called the Tushetians and their recent developments. After an outline of the Tushetians’ traditional and contemporary migration patterns, details of migration to the Russian Federation, Spain and Greece are presented, followed by some reflections on the impact of these forms of migration on gender roles in the home villages. This leads to a more general discussion of the compatibility of Tushetian migration patterns with the European Union (EU) policy of circular migration, as well as the impact of the Eurozone crisis on migrants from post-socialist countries such as Georgia.

The new issue of the journal «Current Problems of Europe» opens with the problem-oriented article, dedicated to the analysis of the state of the Balkans / South-Eastern Europe region and its development in 2000-2020. The author gives a systemic description of the processes taking place in the intra-national and international intra-regional political, social and economic development of the countries of the region, and the problems generated by them. The changes are associated with a difficult transition phase, experienced by the states of the region, for the most part belonging to the post-socialist world (Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania). The exceptions are Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, however, these three states are also going through a difficult period in their history, associated with new problems both in interstate relations within this triangle, and in relations with NATO and the EU, as well as with Russia. The article discusses the specifics of translating the terms «people» and «national» into Russian, as well as the toponym Kosovo (Serb.) / Kosova (Alb.), and ethnonyms «Bošnjak» and «bosanac». The first part of the issue contains articles devoted to general problems of regional studies: the relationship between the terms Eastern Europe, Central Europe, South-Eastern Europe, Balkans, Western Balkans; comparative and political science subjects; the role of the European Union and China in the development of the region; the relationship of national Serbian, post-Yugoslavian and European culture and intellectual heritage as well. The second part of the issue examines the relations of the Balkan states with the states of Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Romania, Belarus), as well as the specifics of their development in the post-socialist period. Thus, there is the possibility of a multilateral - historical, political and cultural, as well as comparative analysis of the development of this complex region, which is of great importance for international relations worldwide.

PATRIARCHY was very old when Queen Elizabeth ascended the English throne. Historians have sought its origins in die Old Testament record of the creation of Jewish monotiieism and in the social conditions of Hebrew society. They have explored die contributions of classical Greece and early Christian thinking to its development and evolution. By the time that the Tudor dynasty ruled in England, the institutionalised male dominance over women and children in die family and die extension of diat subordination to women in society in general, die scriptural patriarchy with which I am concerned, had become so deeply embedded diat it has appeared immutable. Something so permanent, something that was so given, has seemed not to deserve scrutiny by die historians of early modern England. It was socialist and radical feminists who took up die notion of patriarchy in die 1960s because they needed a concept which would help diem to theorise male dominance. From dieir contemporary perspective also, patriarchy appeared immovable and monumental. There was a tendency among them at first to study it as such: feminist historians approached die past wim die premise diat there has always been an undifferentiated and consistent male commitment to domination and control over women in every sphere of life. The conflation of patriarchy with misogyny, I suggest, produced an unhistorical patriarchy as die staple of women's history. It is only fairly recendy diat historical studies of gender have broken free from diese shackles, diat historians have begun to penetrate die discourses and strategies dirough which men have—or have not— coerced, or oppressed or subordinated women through die ages.

Anna Artwinska and Agnieszka Mrozik, eds., Gender, Generations, and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, New York: Routledge, 2020, 352 pp., £120.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-36742-323-0.Clio: Femmes, Genre, Histoire, 48, no. 2 (2018)Lisa Greenwald, Daughters of 1968: Redefining French Feminism and the Women’s Liberation MovementGal Kirn, The Partisan Counter-Archive: Retracing the Ruptures of Art and Memory in the Yugoslav People’s Liberation StruggleMilena Kirova, Performing Masculinity in the Hebrew BibleAndrea Krizsan and Conny Roggeband, eds., Gendering Democratic Backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe: A Comparative AgendaLudmila Miklashevskaya, Gender and Survival in Soviet Russia: A Life in the Shadow of Stalin’s TerrorBarbara Molony and Jennifer Nelson, eds., Women’s Activism and “Second Wave” Feminism: Transnational HistoriesN. K. Petrova, Zhenskie sud’by voiny (Women’s war fates)Feryal Saygılıgil and Nacide Berber, eds. Feminizm: Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce, Cilt 10 (Feminism: Thought in modern Turkey, vol. 10)Marsha Siefert, ed., Labor in State-Socialist Europe, 1945–1989: Contributions to a History of WorkZilka Šiljak Spahić, Sociologija roda: Feministička kritika (Sociology of gender: Feminist critique)Věra Sokolová and Ľubica Kobová, eds., Odvaha nesouhlasit: Feministické myšlení Hany Havelkové a jeho reflexe (The courage to disagree: Hana Havelková’s feminist thought and its reflections)Katarzyna Stańczak-Wiślicz, Piotr Perkowski, Małgorzata Fidelis, Barbara Klich-Kluczewska, Kobiety w Polsce, 1945–1989: Nowoczesność – równouprawnienie – komunizmp (Women in Poland, 1945–1989: Modernity, equality, communism)Vassiliki Theodorou and Despina Karakatsani, Strengthening Young Bodies, Building the Nation: A Social History of Children’s Health and Welfare in Greece (1890–1940) Maria Todorova, The Lost World of Socialists at Europe’s Margins: Imagining Utopia, 1870s–1920s Jessica Zychowicz, Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism and Revolution in Twenty-First-Century Ukraine

Abstract In 1976 an expedition of the Archaeology Institute of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic investigated Scythian Burial-mound No. 9 in a group of burial-mounds near the village of Mar’evka in the Zaporozhie District of the Zaporozhie Region. The mound had been erected from blocks of turf in the manner traditional for the Scythians. Later on a Polovtsian shrine was evidently erected on top of the mound but in the post-Medieval period this would appear to have been destroyed (the base and the lower part of a statue have survived intact). The mound was erected over a grave in the form of a catacomb with two entrances and a burial of a bridled horse in a separate pit. The grave was looted in antiquity. Among the remains of grave goods typical for Scythian burials of various levels rare items were also discovered, including fragments of a sword with one cutting edge, a gold ring with a coin used for its bezel (a Pantikapaion stater). The most remarkable find of all was a board from the lid of a sarcophagus bearing painted decoration. The decoration, applied in three tiers, consisted of battle scenes depicting three pairs of fighting warriors. The attire, weaponry and poses of the warriors make it possible to assume that the decoration illustrates one of the motifs from the mythology of Ancient Greece – Amazonomachy. The dimensions and arrangement of the burial-chamber and the diverse grave goods indicate that a number of individuals had been buried in it – an individual of high rank accompanied by his servants. Details of the funerary rite (the overall lay-out of the grave and its details, features of the horse burial) and also the range of artefacts enable us to date the burial-mound to the very end of the 4th or beginning of the 3rd century BC.

This paper examines the primary elections of the PanHellenic Socialist Party (PASOK) which were held on 5th and 12th of December 2021. Six candidates run for the position of the president in the first round and two runners-up in the second. As mentioned in the literature, there is a dearth of primary elections studies relative to general elections. The latter attract the attention of mass media for the obvious reason: they determine who or which party will govern the country or any other political entity. Nevertheless, there is a growing literature on primary studies. There are three aspects researched in this literature: (a) primary elections systems, (b) why a political party decides to hold primary elections and (c) the selection criteria of candidates and voters. This paper uses the existing literature to analyze some facets of the history of PASOK’s primary elections, emphasizing the most recent one of 2021. The most important conclusion emerging from this analysis is that ideology did play a role, particularly the candidates’ stance on their possible collaboration with the right-wing or the left-wing parties, which has been a controversial issue in the last decade. Another important conclusion is that PASOK voters opted for a younger candidate primarily because they wanted to get out of the current stalemate of PASOK’s low performance in general elections. As predicted from the literature, the competition between the six candidates resulted in a large turnout on the ballot date even though other factors played a positive role such as very good weather and a wide media coverage. Keywords: primaries, elections, voting, political parties, PASOK, Greece

The results of Khrushchev's foreign policy can be considered, albeit not in everything and even more modest than planned, on the whole quite successful. To resolve the 2nd Berlin crisis (1958–1963), Khrushchev in 1960 reduced the Soviet ground forces by a third, thereby trying to encourage the United States to reduce its military presence in Europe. However, at the Paris Summit of the heads of the 4 powers (1960), due to the active opposition of France and Germany, he failed to push through an agreement on West Berlin on Soviet terms. Mao Zedong, who himself dreamed of leadership among socialist countries after Stalin's death, took advantage of the convenient situation to start a conflict with Moscow. In such an environment, Khrushchev escalated the Berlin crisis by threatening to conclude a peace treaty with the GDR and block Western powers' access to West Berlin (at the same time he conducts command and staff exercises “Storm”, 5–15.10.1961, together with the armies of the ATS countries). He hoped that the United States would not dare to start a war because of West Berlin, and this, in turn, would help to break off Western European states from NATO, showing them that the United States is not a reliable defender for them. His plan partially succeeded: in 1966, France will withdraw from NATO. In order to divert the attention and forces of the United States from West Berlin, the USSR has been actively creating distracting situations around the world since 1961. One of these situations was the Caribbean crisis, which almost led to a nuclear war (1962) and was a heavy defeat for the USSR, which had to fulfill all the conditions of the United States, but in return received Kennedy's promise to remove missile bases from Turkey. It will be possible to remove them only in 1963 in exchange for Turkey's support in its war with Greece over Cyprus. From Iran, due to the harsh Anglo-American pressure on the Shah, the USSR was able to achieve only an obligation not to deploy foreign missiles on its territory, but not to withdraw from the Baghdad Pact, nevertheless, the latter's activities were paralyzed. Under Brezhnev, despite the rejection of Khrushchev's tactics of nuclear bluff, the main directions and strategic goals of foreign policy remained the same as under Khrushchev: ensuring security on the western and southern borders of the USSR by splitting the opposing military blocs and establishing ties with Western European countries, especially France, improving relations with Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, linking them economically. The program of naval construction and the permanent presence of the Soviet Navy in all oceans, begun in 1959, continued.

-James Sidbury, Peter Linebaugh ,The many-headed Hydra: Sailors, slaves, commoners, and the hidden history of the revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000. 433 pp., Marcus Rediker (eds)-Ray A. Kea, Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic slave trade. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999. xxi + 234 pp.-Johannes Postma, P.C. Emmer, De Nederlandse slavenhandel 1500-1850. Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 2000. 259 pp.-Karen Racine, Mimi Sheller, Democracy after slavery: Black publics and peasant radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. xv + 224 pp.-Clarence V.H. Maxwell, Michael Craton ,Islanders in the stream: A history of the Bahamian people. Volume two: From the ending of slavery to the twenty-first century. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. xv + 562 pp., Gail Saunders (eds)-César J. Ayala, Guillermo A. Baralt, Buena Vista: Life and work on a Puerto Rican hacienda, 1833-1904. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. xix + 183 pp.-Elizabeth Deloughrey, Thomas W. Krise, Caribbeana: An anthology of English literature of the West Indies 1657-1777. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. xii + 358 pp.-Vera M. Kutzinski, John Gilmore, The poetics of empire: A study of James Grainger's The Sugar Cane (1764). London: Athlone Press, 2000. x + 342 pp.-Sue N. Greene, Adele S. Newson ,Winds of change: The transforming voices of Caribbean women writers and scholars. New York: Peter Lang, 1998. viii + 237 pp., Linda Strong-Leek (eds)-Sue N. Greene, Mary Condé ,Caribbean women writers: Fiction in English. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. x + 233 pp., Thorunn Lonsdale (eds)-Cynthia James, Simone A. James Alexander, Mother imagery in the novels of Afro-Caribbean women. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001. x + 214 pp.-Efraín Barradas, John Dimitri Perivolaris, Puerto Rican cultural identity and the work of Luis Rafael Sánchez. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. 203 pp.-Peter Redfield, Daniel Miller ,The internet: An ethnographic approach. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2000. ix + 217 pp., Don Slater (eds)-Deborah S. Rubin, Carla Freeman, High tech and high heels in the global economy: Women, work, and pink-collar identities in the Caribbean. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2000. xiii + 334 pp.-John D. Galuska, Norman C. Stolzoff, Wake the town and tell the people: Dancehall culture in Jamaica. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2000. xxviii + 298 pp.-Lise Waxer, Helen Myers, Music of Hindu Trinidad: Songs from the Indian Diaspora. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. xxxii + 510 pp.-Lise Waxer, Peter Manuel, East Indian music in the West Indies: Tan-singing, chutney, and the making of Indo-Caribbean culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000. xxv + 252 pp.-Reinaldo L. Román, María Teresa Vélez, Drumming for the Gods: The life and times of Felipe García Villamil, Santero, Palero, and Abakuá. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000. xx + 210 pp.-James Houk, Kenneth Anthony Lum, Praising his name in the dance: Spirit possession in the spiritual Baptist faith and Orisha work in Trinidad, West Indies. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. xvi + 317 pp.-Raquel Romberg, Jean Muteba Rahier, Representations of Blackness and the performance of identities. Westport CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1999. xxvi + 264 pp.-Allison Blakely, Lulu Helder ,Sinterklaasje, kom maar binnen zonder knecht. Berchem, Belgium: EPO, 1998. 215 pp., Scotty Gravenberch (eds)-Karla Slocum, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Diaspora and visual culture: Representing Africans and Jews. London: Routledge, 2000. xiii + 263 pp.-Corey D.B. Walker, Paget Henry, Caliban's reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2000. xiii + 304 pp.-Corey D.B. Walker, Lewis R. Gordon, Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana existential thought. New York; Routledge, 2000. xiii +228 pp.-Alex Dupuy, Bob Shacochis, The immaculate invasion. New York: Viking, 1999. xix + 408 pp.-Alex Dupuy, John R. Ballard, Upholding democracy: The United States military campaign in Haiti, 1994-1997. Westport CT: Praeger, 1998. xviii + 263 pp.-Anthony Payne, Jerry Haar ,Canadian-Caribbean relations in transition: Trade, sustainable development and security. London: Macmillan, 1999. xxii + 255 pp., Anthony T. Bryan (eds)-Bonham C. Richardson, Sergio Díaz-Briquets ,Conquering nature: The environmental legacy of socialism in Cuba. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. xiii + 328 pp., Jorge Pérez-López (eds)-Neil L. Whitehead, Gérard Collomb ,Na'na Kali'na: Une histoire des Kali'na en Guyane. Petit Bourg, Guadeloupe: Ibis Rouge Editions, 2000. 145 pp., Félix Tiouka (eds)-Neil L. Whitehead, Upper Mazaruni Amerinidan District Council, Amerinidan Peoples Association of Guyana, Forest Peoples Programme, Indigenous peoples, land rights and mining in the Upper Mazaruni. Nijmegan, Netherlands: Global Law Association, 2000. 132 pp.-Salikoko S. Mufwene, Ronald F. Kephart, 'Broken English': The Creole language of Carriacou. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. xvi + 203 pp.-Salikoko S. Mufwene, Velma Pollard, Dread talk: The language of Rastafari. Kingston: Canoe Press: Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. Revised edition, 2000. xv + 117 pp.

-Michael D. Olien, Edmund T. Gordon, Disparate Diasporas: Identity and politics in an African-Nicaraguan community.Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. xiv + 330 pp.-Donald Cosentino, Margarite Fernández Olmos ,Sacred possessions: Vodou, Santería, Obeah, and the Caribbean. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997. viii + 312 pp., Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert (eds)-John P. Homiak, Lorna McDaniel, The big drum ritual of Carriacou: Praisesongs in rememory of flight. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998. xiv + 198 pp.-Julian Gerstin, Gerdès Fleurant, Dancing spirits: Rhythms and rituals of Haitian Vodun, the Rada Rite. Westport CT: Greenwood, 1996. xvi + 240 pp.-Rose-Marie Chierici, Alex Stepick, Pride against Prejudice: Haitians in the United States. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1998. x + 134 pp.-Rose-Marie Chierici, Flore Zéphir, Haitian immigrants in Black America: A sociological and sociolinguistic portrait. Westport CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1996. xvi + 180 pp.-Luis Martínez-Fernández, Rosalie Schwartz, Pleasure Island: Tourism and temptation in Cuba. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. xxiv + 239 pp.-Jorge L. Giovannetti, My footsteps in Baraguá. Script and direction by Gloria Rolando. VHS, 53 minutes. Havana: Mundo Latino, 1996.-Gert Oostindie, Mona Rosendahl, Inside the revolution: Everyday life in socialist Cuba. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. x + 194 pp.-Frank Argote-Freyre, Lisa Brock ,Between race and empire: African-Americans and Cubans before the Cuban revolution. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998. xii + 298 pp., Digna Castañeda Fuertes (eds)-José E. Cruz, Frances Negrón-Muntaner ,Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking colonialism and nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. x + 303 pp., Ramón Grosfoguel (eds)-Helen I. Safa, Félix V. Matos Rodríguez ,Puerto Rican Women's history: New perspectives. Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. x + 262 pp., Linda C. Delgado (eds)-Arlene Torres, Jean P. Peterman, Telling their stories: Puerto Rican Women and abortion. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1996. ix + 112 pp.-Trevor W. Purcell, Philip Sherlock ,The story of the Jamaican People. Kingston: Ian Randle; Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1998. xii + 434 pp., Hazel Bennett (eds)-Howard Fergus, Donald Harman Akenson, If the Irish ran the world: Montserrat, 1630-1730. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1997. xii + 273 pp.-John S. Brierley, Lawrence S. Grossman, The political ecology of bananas: Contract farming, peasants, and agrarian change in the Eastern Caribbean. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. xx + 268 pp.-Mindie Lazarus-Black, Jeannine M. Purdy, Common law and colonised peoples: Studies in Trinidad and Western Australia. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Dartmouth, 1997. xii + 309.-Stephen Slemon, Barbara Lalla, Defining Jamaican fiction: Marronage and the discourse of survival. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1996. xi + 224 pp.-Stephen Slemon, Renu Juneja, Caribbean transactions: West Indian culture in literature.-Sue N. Greene, Richard F. Patteson, Caribbean Passages: A critical perspective on new fiction from the West Indies. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. ix + 187 pp.-Harold Munneke, Ivelaw L. Griffith ,Democracy and human rights in the Caribbean. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1997. vii + 278 pp., Betty N. Sedoc-Dahlberg (eds)-Francisco E. Thoumi, Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith, Drugs and security in the Caribbean: Sovereignty under seige. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1997. xx + 295 pp.-Michiel Baud, Eric Paul Roorda, The dictator next door: The good neighbor policy and the Trujillo regime in the Dominican republic, 1930-1945. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1998. xii + 337 pp.-Peter Mason, Wim Klooster, The Dutch in the Americas 1600-1800. Providence RI: The John Carter Brown Library, 1997. xviii + 101 pp.-David R. Watters, Aad H. Versteeg ,The archaeology of Aruba: The Tanki Flip site. Oranjestad; Archaeological Museum Aruba, 1997. 518 pp., Stéphen Rostain (eds)

A review article devoted to the book of Andrzej Blikle – Doktryna jakości. Rzecz o skutecznym zarządzaniu. As pointed out by the Author, the book is a case of a work rare on the Polish publishing market, written by an outstanding scientist, who successfully runs a business activity. The combination of practical experience with theoretical knowledge gave a result that may be satisfying both for practitioners as well as theorists, and also those who want to get to know the ins and outs of an effective and efficient business management. The Author of the review believes that it is an important voice for shaping an inclusive socio-economic system, which constitutes a value in itself. Although the book is mainly concerned with business management, its message has a much wider dimension and is concerned with real measures of wealth, money and people’s lives. The book was awarded The SGH Collegium of Business Administration Award “For the best scientific work in the field of business administration in the years 2014-2015”. Andrzej Jacek Blikle Doktryna jakości. Rzecz o skutecznym zarządzaniu (The Doctrine of Quality. On Effective Management) Gliwice, Helion Publishing Company, 2014, p. 546 Introduction One of the distinctive features of the contemporary economy and contemporary world is a kind of obsession of quantity which is related to thoughtless consumerism, unfavourable to the care for the quality of the work and the quality of the produced and consumed goods and services. It is accompanied by culture (or rather non-culture) of singleness. Therefore, the book The Doctrine of Quality by Andrzej Blikle is like a breath of fresh air. It is a different perspective on the economy and the model of operation of enterprises, on the model of work and life of people. A. Blikle proves that it can be done otherwise. He proves it on the basis of careful studies of the source literature – as expected from a professor of mathematics and an economist, but also on the basis of his own experience gained during the scientific and educational work, and most of all through the economic practice. In the world governed by the obsession of quantity, characterised by fragility, shortness of human relationships, including the relationship of the entrepreneur – employee, A. Blikle chooses durability of these relations, creativity, responsibility, quality of work and production, and ethics. The Doctrine of Quality is a rare example of the work on the Polish publishing market, whose author is a prominent scientist, successfully conducting a business activity for more than two decades, which has contributed to the development of the family company – a known confectionery brand “A. Blikle”. The combination of practical experience with theoretical knowledge gave a result that may be satisfying both for practitioners as well as theorists, and also those who want to get to know the ins and outs of an effective and efficient business management, or develop the knowledge on this topic. In an attractive, clear narrative form, the author comprehensively presents the complexities of business management, indicating the sources of success, but also the reasons and the foundations of failures. At the same time, he presents these issues with an interdisciplinary approach, which contributes to thoroughness of the arguments and deeper reflections. Holism, typical to this book, is also expressed in the focus of A. Blikle not only on the economic, but also on social and ecological issues. Here, the author points to the possibility and need of reconciliation of the economic interests with social interests, and the care for the public good. Analyses of this subject are presented using the achievements of many areas of studies, in addition to economic sciences, including mathematics, sociology, psychology, medicine, and others. This gives a comprehensive picture of the complexity of business management – taking into account its close and distant environment. There are no longueurs in the book, although extensive (over 500 pages), or lengthy, or even unnecessary reasoning overwhelming the reader, as the text is illustrated with a number of examples from practice, and coloured with anecdotes. At the same time, the author does not avoid using expressions popular in the world of (not only) business. He proves that a motivational system which is not based on the approach of “carrot and stick” and without a devastating competition of a “rat race” is possible. The author supports his arguments with references not only to the interdisciplinary scientific achievements, but also to the economic historical experiences and to a variety of older and newer business models. There is a clear fascination with the reserves of creativity and productivity in the humanization of work. In fact, the author strongly exposes the potential of productivity and creativity in creating the conditions and atmosphere of work fostering elimination of fear of the future. He shows that such fear destroys creativity. It is not a coincidence that A. Blikle refers to the Fordist principles, including the warning that manufacturing and business do not consist of cheap buying and expensive selling. He reminds that Henry Ford, a legendary creator of the development of the automotive industry in the United States, put serving the public before the profit. The Doctrine of Quality is at the same time a book – proof that one of the most dangerous misconceptions or errors in the contemporary understanding of economics is finding that it is a science of making money, chremastics. Edmund Phelps and others warned against this in the year of the outbreak of the financial crisis in the USA in 2008, reminding that economics is not a science of making money but a science of relations between the economy and social life [Phelps, 2008]. Economics is a science of people in the process of management. Therefore, by definition, it applies to social values and ethos. Ethos is a general set of values, standards and models of proceedings adopted by a particular group of people. In this sense, ethos and economics as a science of people in the process of management are inseparable. Detaching economics from morality is in contradiction to the classical Smithian concept of economics, as Adam Smith combined the idea of the free market with morality. He treated his first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, as an inseparable basis for deliberations on the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, which was the subject of the subsequent work of this thinker [Smith, 1989; Smith, 2012]. Identifying economics with chremastics would then mean that all actions are acceptable and desired, if their outcome is earnings, profit, money. The book of A. Blikle denies it. It contains a number of case studies, which also stimulate broader reflections. Therefore, and also due to the features indicated above, it can be a very useful teaching aid in teaching entrepreneurship and management. The appearance of a book promoting the doctrine of quality and exposing the meaning of ethos of work is especially important because today the phenomenon of product adulteration becomes increasingly widespread, which is ironically referred to in literature as the “gold-plating” of products [Sennett, 2010, pp. 115-118], and the trend as “antifeatures”, that is intentionally limiting the efficiency and durability of products of daily use to create demand for new products. A model example of antifeature is a sim-lock installed in some telephones which makes it impossible to use SIM cards of foreign operators [Rohwetter, 2011, p. 48; Miszewski, 2013]. These types of negative phenomena are also promoted by the development of systemic solutions aiming at the diffusion of responsibility [Sennett, 2010]. This issue is presented among others by Nassim N.N. Taleb, in the book with a meaningful title Antifragile: How to Live in a World We Don’t Understand? The author proves that the economy and society lose their natural durability as a result of the introduction of numerous tools and methods of insurance against risks, but mostly by shifting the burden of risks on other entities [Taleb, 2012]. N.N. Taleb illustrates his arguments with numerous convincing examples and references to history, recalling, inter alia, that in ancient times there was no building control, but the constructors, e.g. of bridges had to sleep under them for some time after their construction, and the ancient aqueducts are still working well until today. So, he shows that a contemporary world, focused on quantitative effects, does not create a sound base for ethical behaviours and the care for the quality of work and manufacturing. Andrzej Blikle points to the need and possibility of opposing this, and opposing to what the Noble Price Winner for Economics, Joseph Stiglitz described as avarice triumphs over prudence [Stiglitz, 2015, p. 277]. The phrase emphasised in the book “Live and work with a purpose” is the opposition to the dangerous phenomena listed above, such as for example antifeatures. convincing that although the business activity is essentially focused on profits, making money, limited to this, it would be led to the syndrome of King Midas, who wanted to turn everything he touched into gold, but he soon realised that he was at risk of dying of starvation, as even the food turned into gold. What distinguishes this book is that almost every part of it forces in-depth reflections on the social and economic relations and brings to mind the works of other authors, but at the same time, creates a new context for them. So, A. Blikle clearly proves that both the economy and businesses need social rooting. This corresponds to the theses of the Hungarian intellectual Karl Polanyi, who in his renowned work The Great Transformation, already in 1944 argued that the economy is not rooted in the social relations [Polanyi, 2010, p. 70]. He pointed to the risk resulting from commodification of everything, and warned that allowing the market mechanism and competition to control the human life and environment would result in disintegration of society. Although K. Polanyi’s warnings were concerned with the industrial civilization, they are still valid, even now – when the digital revolution brings fundamental changes, among others, on the labour market – they strengthen it. The dynamics of these changes is so high that it seems that the thesis of Jeremy Rifkin on the end of work [Rifkin, 2003] becomes more plausible. It is also confirmed by recent analyses included in the book of this author, concerning the society of zero marginal cost and sharing economy [Rifkin, 2016], and the analyses concerning uberisation [Uberworld, 2016]. The book of Andrzej Blikle also evokes one of the basic asymmetries of the contemporary world, which is the inadequacy of the dynamics and sizes of the supply of products and services to the dynamics and sizes of the demand for them. Insufficient demand collides with the rapidly increasing, as a result of technological changes, possibilities of growth of production and services. This leads to overproduction and related therewith large negative implications, with features of wasteful economy of excess [Kornai, 2014]. It is accompanied by phenomena with features of some kind of market bulimia, sick consumerism, detrimental both to people and the environment [Rist, 2015]. One of the more compromising signs of the economy of excess and wasting of resources is wasting of food by rich countries, when simultaneously, there are areas of hunger in some parts of the world [Stuart, 2009]. At the same time, the economy of excess does not translate to the comfort of the buyers of goods – as in theory attributed to the consumer market. It is indicated in the publication of Janos Kornai concerning a comparative analysis of the features of socio-economic systems. While exposing his deep critical evaluation of socialist non-market systems, as economies of constant deficiency, he does not spare critical opinions on the capitalist economy of excess, with its quest for the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) and profits. As an example of the economy of excess, he indicates the pharmaceutical industry, with strong monopolistic competition, dynamic innovativeness, wide selection for the buyers, flood of advertisements, manipulation of customers, and often bribing the doctors prescribing products [Kornai 2014, p. 202]. This type of abnormalities is not alien to other industries. Although J. Konrai appreciates that in the economy of excess, including the excess of production capacities, the excess is “grease” calming down and soothing clashes that occur in the mechanisms of adaptation, he also sees that those who claim that in the economy of excess (or more generally in the market economy), sovereignty of consumers dominates, exaggerate [Kornai, 2014, pp. 171-172], as the manufacturers, creating the supply, manipulate the consumers. Thus, there is an excess of supply – both of values as well as junk [Kornai, 2014, p. 176]. Analysing the economy of excess, J. Kornai brings this issue to the question of domination and subordination. It corresponds with the opinion of Jerzy Wilkin, according to whom, the free market can also enslave, so take away individual freedom; on the other hand, the lack of the free market can lead to enslavement as well. Economists willingly talk about the free market, and less about the free man [Wilkin, 2014, p. 4]. The economy of excess is one of the consequences of making a fetish of the economic growth and its measure, which is the gross domestic product (GDP) and treating it as the basis of social and economic activity. In such a system, the pressure of growth is created, so you must grow to avoid death! The system is thus comparable to a cyclist, who has to move forwards to keep his balance [Rist, 2015, p. 181]. It corresponds with the known, unflattering to economists, saying of Kenneth E. Boulding [1956], criticising the focus of economics on the economic growth, while ignoring social implications and consequences to the environment: Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist. [from: Rist, 2015, p. 268]. GDP is a very much needed or even indispensable measure for evaluation of the material level of the economies of individual countries and for comparing their economic health. However, it is insufficient for evaluation of the real level of welfare and quality of life. It requires supplementation with other measures, as it takes into account only the values created by the market purchase and sale transactions. It reflects only the market results of the activity of enterprises and households. Additionally, the GDP account threats the socially desirable and not desirable activities equally. Thus, the market activity related to social pathologies (e.g. functioning of prisons, prostitution, and drug dealing) also increase the GDP. It was accurately expressed already in 1968 by Robert Kennedy, who concluded the discussion on this issue saying that: the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile [The Guardian, 2012]. While Grzegorz W. Kołodko even states that it should be surprising how it is possible that despite a number of alternative measures of social and economic progress, we are still in the corset of narrow measure of the gross product, which completely omits many significant aspects of the social process of reproduction [Kołodko, 2013, p. 44]. In this context he points to the necessity of triple sustainable growth – economic, social, and ecological [Kołodko, 2013, p. 377]. Transition from the industrial civilisation model to the new model of economy, to the age of information, causes a kind of cultural regression, a phenomenon of cultural anchoring in the old system. This type of lock-in effect - described in the source literature, that is the effect of locking in the existing frames and systemic solutions, is a barrier to development. The practice more and more often and clearer demonstrates that in the conditions of the new economy, the tools and traditional solutions turn out to be not only ineffective, but they even increase the risk of wrong social and economic decisions, made at different institutional levels. All this proves that new development models must be searched for and implemented, to allow counteraction to dysfunctions of the contemporary economy and wasting the development potential, resulting from a variety of maladjustments generated by the crisis of civilisation. Polish authors who devote much of their work to these issues include G.W. Kołodko, Jerzy Kleer, or Maciej Bałtowski. Studies confirm that there is a need for a new pragmatism, new, proinclusive model of shaping the social and economic reality, a model which is more socially rooted, aiming at reconciling social, economic and ecological objectives, with simultaneous optimisation of the use of the social and economic potential [Kołodko, 2013; Bałtowski, 2016; Kleer, 2015]. There is more and more evidence that the barriers to economic development growing in the global economy are closely related with the rooting of the economy in social relations. The book of A. Blikle becomes a part of this trend in a new and original manner. Although the author concentrates on the analyses of social relations mainly at the level of an enterprise, at the same time, he comments them at a macroeconomic, sociological and ethical level, and interdisciplinary contexts constitute an original value of the book. Conclusion I treat the book of Andrzej Blike as an important voice in favour of shaping an inclusive social and economic system, in favour of shaping inclusive enterprises, that is oriented on an optimal absorption of knowledge, innovation and effective reconciliation of the interests of entrepreneurs with the interests of employees and the interests of society. Inclusiveness is indeed a value in itself. It is understood as a mechanism/system limiting wasting of material resources and human capital, and counteracting environmental degradation. An inclusive social and economic system is a system oriented on optimisation of the production resources and reducing the span between the actual and potential level of economic growth and social development [Reforma, 2015]. And this is the system addressed by Andrzej Blikle in his book. At least this is how I see it. Although the book is mainly concerned with business management, its message has a much wider dimension and is concerned with real measures of wealth, money and people’s lives. null

It is a well-known fact that Greece faces one of the most precarious and transformative periods of its modern history. Greek society has come to learn, in a baleful manner, that crisis is the sequence of its former political inefficiencies and a slump that must be overcome. The pressure of this awareness leads people to deface previously established social convictions about the self and the world. In this procedure, social and mass media articulate and (re)produce discourses from above, below and the past so to capitalize the present for a new and solid horizon for the future. This article challenges five beliefs that circulate in the Greek public sphere, inculcating in the collective consciousness their incontrovertible realities. The end of Post-Polity era (the “former” political status quo of Greece), the revival of ethno-socialist movements, the debt crisis of eurozone countries, youth's stand for social change and the role of Greece in this global financial turmoil comprise the contents of this critical debate; one that aims to make sense of what social change feels like in the context of the current global crisis.

In the last few years, several cases raising a very similar issue have been brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR): all these disputes are centred around the identity of a certain group which the applicants claim to defend, while the State contests either the mere existence of this group as distinct from the rest of the population, or the terms used by the applicants to describe it. Two of these cases – Sidiropoulos and others v. Greece and Gorzelik and others v. Poland – bear upon the refusal of national Courts to register an association created to promote a ‘minority culture’ – the ‘Macedonian’ one in the first instance, the culture of the ‘Silesian national minority’ in the second. The Greek government argues that ‘Macedonians’ do not constitute a distinct ethnic group, and that the claiming of a separate ‘Macedonian identity’ is an attack against Greek symbols and history, if not against the territorial integrity of Greece. In the Polish case, registration was refused on the ground that the association wrongly alleged that the ‘Silesians’ constitute a ‘national minority', while, according to domestic Courts, they are ‘only’ an ‘ethnic group'. The other cases concern measures or sanctions imposed on the applicants because of the stance they took with respect to a particular community: the conviction of a Greek MP for having used the term ‘Turks’ during the electoral campaign to address the Muslim population of Western Thrace in Greece (Ahmet Sadik v. Greece); the dissolution of political parties in Turkey for having stated in their programme that ‘Kurds’ constitute a ‘minority', a ‘people’ or a ‘nation’ (Unified Communist Party of Turkey (TBKP) and others v. Turkey; Socialist Party of Turkey and others v. Turkey; Party of Freedom and Democracy (Özdep) v. Turkey); finally a prohibition on organising public meetings issued against an association promoting the alleged ‘Macedonian’ culture and history in Bulgaria (Stankov and the United Macedonian Organisation Ilinden v. Bulgaria).

The departure of the greater part of the Greek community from Egypt is one of the many sad stories of the post-war Mediterranean. This article focuses upon the reports of the Greek Consul-General in Alexandria, Byron Theodoropoulos, regarding the Egyptian ‘Socialist Laws’ of summer 1961, which gave the coup de grâce to the Greek community. It argues that the expulsion of the Greeks was part of a wider redistribution of power in the region. This episode, together with similar experiences in other parts of the Mediterranean, evidently cemented the determination of a younger generation of political leaders and diplomats to seek Greece's future in the cosmopolitan, post-nationalist West, rather than in a ‘Near East’ rife with nationalism and economic failure.

Despite the period's fashionable aspiration to a materialist, scientific objectivity, the new wilderness revealed by the microscope in the nineteenth century did not lend itself quickly or easily to sober, observational consensus. Rather, the nature of the microscopic world was, like the cosmos, largely open to interpretation. Since techniques of observation were largely undeveloped, many microscopists were not certain precisely what it was they were to look for, nor of the nature of their subjects. Did monstrosity lurk at the threshold, or was the microscope a window to the divine designs of the creator? Monstrosity and the microscopic may be a familiar relationship today, but prior to Pasteur and Koch's development of a germ theory of disease in the 1870s, the invisible world revealed by the microscope was not especially horrific, nor did it invalidate long-standing notions of the divinity of Nature. It is more than probable that many microorganisms were, prior to their identification as causal agents of disease, looked upon and admired as beautiful natural specimens. Certain microscopists may have suspected early on that all was not well at the microscopic level (suspicion of wilderness is traditional within the Western cartographic project), but by and large nineteenth century microscopy was deeply enmeshed in the extensive romanticism of the period, and most texts on the nature of the microorganism prior to the late nineteenth century tend to emphasise (in retrospect, a little naively), their embodiment of the amazing, wonderful complexity of the natural world. Germany was the center of this modern fusion of romanticism, naturalism, and microscopic visuality, where the prolific microgeologist, Christian Godfried Ehrenberg (1795 - 1876) achieved considerable attention through his discovery of the intricately symmetrical, skeletal remains of unknown microorganisms in the calacerous tertiaries of Sicily and Greece, and Oran in Africa. Documenting these fossils in Microgeologie (1854), he established for them the group Polycystina, in which he also included a series of forms making up nearly the whole of a silicious sandstone prevailing through an extensive district of Barbadoes. These widely admired microscopic sea-dwelling organisms were later discovered and studied in their living state by Johannes Muller, who named them Radiolaria. Ehrenberg's pursuit of natural beauty, rather than monstrosity, was clearly appealing throughout the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Central to the aesthetic evaluation of the natural world inspired by his discoveries was a privileging of symmetrical forms as divine signifiers. Drawing heavily from Ehrenberg's approach to the natural world, it had been the intention of Gideon Algernon Mantell, Vice-President of the Geological Society of London and author of The Invisible World Revealed by the Microscope (1850), to "impart just and comprehensive views of the grandeur and harmony of the Creation, and of the Infinite Wisdom and Beneficence of its Divine Author; and which, in every condition and circumstance of life, will prove a never-failing source of pleasure and instruction" (ix-x). An admirable project indeed, but increasingly problematic in the wake of evidence suggesting the infinite wisdom and beneficence of the divine author included the scripting of destructive, ruthless, mindless, invisible agents of suffering and death against which human beings were granted little, if any, defence. What did such evidence say of our allegedly privileged role in the story of life on Earth? Where might the raw, biological body reside within such an arrangement? Precisely at the vulnerable center of the controversy surrounding the nature of its own existence. Not surprisingly, consensus on what the body actually is has always been fairly frail, since it closed its modern formation in conjunction with the revelation of the body's mysterious, "hidden powers" through the lens of the microscope, which radically expanded, and confused, the cartographic field. Renaissance anatomical representation, thought once to be so authoritative and thorough (maybe too thorough), now seemed superficial. And moreover, as shown by the discovery of electricity and its extensive, shockingly experimental application to the body, we were enigmatic entities indeed, consisting of, and vulnerable to, mysterious, untamed forces of attraction and repulsion. The invention of the "Leyden jar" in the eighteenth century, which allowed the storage and regulation of electrical charge, had been turned almost immediately to the human body, often with all the playful naivete of a child. As Sarah Bakewell (2000) writes: One experimenter, Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700-70), liked to demonstrate the power of the new equipment by lining up 180 of the king's guards with hands clasped and connecting the man on the end to a Leyden jar, so that the whole line leaped involuntarily into the air. (36) The discovery that the biological body was an electrical organism unquestionably inspired the exorbitant interest in the "ether" that underpinned much nineteenth century spiritualism, horror fiction, and the emergence of paranoia as a cultural condition in the modern era. Most notably, it disrupted the notion of an external God in favour of a "divine power" running through, and thus connecting, all life. And as psychiatry has since discovered, the relation of the body to such a deeper, all-pervasive, unmappable power - an ontology in which matter has no empty spaces - is "profoundly schizoid" (Anti-Oedipus 19). But this did not prevent its intrusion into nineteenth century science. Biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834 - 1919), nineteenth century Germany's most vocal advocator of Darwinism, openly subscribed to a mystical, arguably delusional approach to the natural world. Drawn to study of the microscopic by Ehrenberg, Haeckel was likewise attracted to the patterned aesthetic of the natural world, especially its production of symmetrical forms. Although he drew his fair share of critics, it is unlikely he was ever considered "sick", since neither paranoia nor schizophrenia were recognised illnesses at the time. Yet in retrospect his writings clearly indicate a commitment to what would now be regarded as a paranoid/schizophrenic ontology in which "matter has no empty spaces". Haeckel's recourse to monism may be understood, at least in part, as a reaction to the agency panic provoked by the invasion narrative central to the germ theory of disease: if all is One, notions of "invasion" become redundant and transformed into the internalised self-regulation of the whole. Devoted to monism, Haeckel was adamant that "ever more clearly are we compelled by reflection to recognise that God is not to be placed over against the material world as an external being, but must be placed as a "divine power" or "moving spirit" within the cosmos itself" (Monism 15). This conception of God is synonymous with that discussed by Deleuze and Guttari in their exploration of the nervous illness of Judge Daniel Schreber, in which God is defined as the Omnitudo realitatis, from which all secondary realities are derived by a process of division (Anti-Oedipus 13). Like a textbook schizophrenic, Haeckel stressed the oneness of the cosmos, its operation under fundamental conditions of attraction and repulsion, the indissoluble connection between energy and matter, the mind and embodiment, and God and the world. His obsession with the "secret powers" of the Creator led him to adopt the notion of a "cosmic ether", which was itself almost totally dependent on contemporary research into the properties of electricity. Haeckel wrote that "the ether itself is no longer hypothetical; its existence can at any moment be demonstrated by electrical and optical experiment" (Monism 23). Recognising the inherent conflict of nature whilst providing convincing evidence of its divine, harmonious beauty through his hundreds of spectacularly symmetrical, mandala-like representations of Radiolarians and other microscopic forms in Die Radiolarian (1862) and Kunstformen der Natur (1899), Haeckel furthered his views through several popular manifestos such as Monism as Connecting Religion and Science: The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science (1894), The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy (1905), and The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century (1911). For Haeckel, clearly entranced by the hypersignificance of nature, the struggle for biological survival was also a mystical one, and thus divinely inspired. Tying this notion together with the Volkish tradition, and clearly influenced by the emerging germ theory, which emphasised conflict as precondition for (apparently mythic) harmony, Haeckel wrote that: We now know that the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by a relentless war of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must daily perish in every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen individuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the existence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening dangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every minute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble picture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns throughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's goodness and wisdom in nature, to which as children we listened so devoutly fifty years ago, no longer finds credit now - at least among educated people who think. It has disappeared before our deeper acquaintance with the mutual relations of organisms, the advancement of ecology and sociology, and our knowledge of parasite life and pathology. (Monism 73-74). The "war of existence", according to Haeckel, was ultimately an expression of the ethereal power of an omnipresent God. Denying real difference between matter and energy, he also implicitly denied the agency of the subject, instead positing the war of existence as a self-regulating flow of divine power. Biological survival was thus synonymous with the triumph of divine embodiment. Since Haeckel was resolutely convinced that nature was hierarchically structured (with the Aryan Volk fairly close to the top), so too were its expressions of God. And since God was not a being external to the Self, but rather the vital spirit or soul running through all being, divinity may be contained by organisms in varying degrees depending on their level of evolution. Domination of others was thus a prerequisite for the pursuit of God. And this was the essence of Haeckel's highly problematic distortion of the Darwinist theory of evolution: At the lowest stage, the rude - we may say animal - phase of prehistoric primitive man, is the "ape-man", who, in the course of the tertiary period, has only to a limited degree raised himself above his immediate pithecoid ancestors, the anthropoid apes. Next come successive stages of the lowest and simplest kind of culture, such as only the rudest of still existing primitive peoples enable us in some measure to conceive. These "savages" are succeeded by peoples of a low civilisation, and from these again, by a long series of intermediate steps, we rise little by little to the more highly civilised nations. To these alone - of the twelve races of mankind only to the Mediterranean and Mongolian - are we indebted for what is usually called "universal history. (Monism 5-6) This fairly crude, very German take on Darwinism, with its emphasis on the transference of biological principles to the social realm, contributed to the establishment of the preconditions for the emergence of National Socialism in that country shortly after Haeckel's death in 1919. In The Scientific Origins of National Socialism (1971), Daniel Gasman reveals the extent of Haeckel's descent into mysticism and its part in the wider development of the Volkish myths that underpinned Nazism in the twentieth century. And although the "sick" ideals of Nazism are undeniably deplorable, upon review of the cultural circumstances in which Haeckel's ideas developed, many of them seem inevitable for a frightened, paranoid culture convinced - based on scientific evidence - that life itself can only ever be a form of war: the very notion that continues to underpin, and indeed sustain, the germ theory of disease in the modern era References Bakewell, Sarah. "It's Alive!" Fortean Times October 2000: 34-39. Carpenter, William B. The Microscope and its Revelations. London: J & A Churchill, 1891. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 1972. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983. Gasman, Daniel. The Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League. London: McDonald, 1971. Haeckel, Ernst. Die Radiolarien (Rhizopoda Radiaria). Berlin, 1862. ---. Monism as Connecting Religion and Science: The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1894. ---. Kunstformen der Natur. 2 vols. Leipzig and Wien, 1899. ---. The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century. Watts and Co., 1911. ---. The Wonders of Life. London: Watts and Co., 1905. Mantell, Gideon Algernon. The Invisible World Revealed by the Microscope; or, Thoughts on Animalcules. London: John Murray, 1850. Tomes, Nancy. The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1998.

IntroductionThe “North” is given explicitly “Nordic” value in extreme metal, as a vehicle for narratives of identity, nationalism and ideology. However, we also contend that “Nordicness” is articulated in diverse and contradictory ways in extreme metal contexts. We examine Nordicness in three key iterations: firstly, Nordicness as a brand tied to extremity and “authenticity”; secondly, Nordicness as an expression of exclusory ethnic belonging and ancestry; and thirdly, Nordicness as an imagined community of liberal democracy.In situating Nordicness across these iterations, we call into focus how the value of the “North” in metal discourse unfolds in different contexts with different implications. We argue that “Nordicness” as it is represented in extreme metal scenes cannot be considered as a uniform, essential category, but rather one marked by tensions and paradoxes that undercut the possibility of any singular understanding of the “North”. Deploying textual and critical discourse analysis, we analyse what Nordicness is made to mean in extreme metal scenes. Furthermore, we critique understandings of the “North” as a homogenous category and instead interrogate the plural ways in which “Nordic” meaning is articulated in metal. We focus specifically on Nordic Extreme Metal. This subgenre has been chosen with an eye to the regional complexities of the Nordic area in Northern Europe, the popularity of extreme metal in Nordic markets, and the successful global marketing of Nordic metal bands and styles.We use the term “Nordic” in line with Loftsdóttir and Jensen’s definition, wherein the “Nordic countries” encompass Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Finland, and the autonomous regions of Greenland: the Faroe Islands and the Aland Islands (3). “Nordic-ness”, they argue, is the cultural identity of the Nordic countries, reified through self-perception, internationalisation and “national branding” (Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2).In referring to “extreme metal”, we draw from Kahn-Harris’s characterisation of the term. “Extreme metal” represents a cluster of heavy metal subgenres–primarily black metal, death metal, thrash metal, doom metal and grindcore–marked by their “extremity”; their impetus towards “[un]conventional musical aesthetics” (Kahn-Harris 6).Nonetheless, we remain acutely aware of the complexities that attend both terms. Just as extreme metal itself is “exceptionally diverse” (Kahn-Harris 6) and “constantly developing and reconfiguring” (Kahn-Harris 7), the category of the “Nordic” is also a site of “diverse experiences” (Loftsdóttir & Jensen 3). We seek to move beyond any essentialist understanding of the “Nordic” and move towards a critical mapping of the myriad ways in which the “Nordic” is given value in extreme metal contexts.Branding the North: Nordicness as Extremity and AuthenticityMetal’s relationship with the Nordic countries has become a key area of interest for both popular and scholarly accounts of heavy metal as the genre has rapidly expanded in the region. The Nordic countries currently boast the highest rate of metal bands per capita (Grandoni). Since the mid-2000s, metal scholars have displayed an accelerated interest in the “cultural aesthetics and identity politics” of metal in Northern Europe (Brown 261). Wider popular interest in Nordic metal has been assisted by the notoriety of the Norwegian black metal scene of the early 1990s, wherein a series of murders and church arsons committed by scene members formed the basis for popular texts such as Moynihan and Søderlind’s book Lords of Chaos and Aites and Ewell’s documentary Until the Light Takes Us.Invocations of Nordicness in metal music are not a new phenomenon, nor have such allusions been strictly limited to Northern European artists. Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden displayed an interest in Norse mythology, while Venom and Manowar frequently drew on Nordic imagery in their performance and visual aesthetics.This interest in the North was largely ephemeral–the use of popular Nordic iconography stressed romanticised constructions of the North as a site of masculine liberty, rather than locating such archetypes in a historical context. Such narratives of Nordic masculinity, liberty and heathenry nevertheless become central to heavy metal’s contextual discourses, and point to the ways in which “Nordicness” becomes mobilised as a particular branded category.Whilst Nordic “branding” for earlier heavy metal bands was largely situated in romantic imaginings of the ancient North, in the late 1980s there emerged “a secondary usage” of Nordic identity and iconography by Northern European metal bands (Trafford & Pluskowski 58). Such “Nordicness” laid far more stress on historical context, national identity and notions of ancestry, and, crucially, a sense of extremity and isolation. This emphasis on metal’s extremity beyond the mainstream has long been a crucial component in the marketing of Nordic scenes.Such “extremity” is given mutually supportive value as “authenticity”, where the term is understood as a value judgement (Moore 209) applied by audiences to discern if music remains committed to its own premises (Frith 71). Such questions of sincerity and commitment to metal’s core continue to circulate in the discourses of Nordic extreme metal. Sweden’s death metal underground, for example, was considered at “the forefront of one of the most extreme varieties of music yet conceived” (Moynihan and Søderlind 32), with both the Stockholm and Gothenburg “sounds” proving influential beyond Northern Europe (Kahn-Harris 106).Situating Nordicness as a distinct identity beyond metal’s commercial appeal underscores much of the marketing of Nordic extreme metal to international audiences. Such discourses continue in contemporary contexts–Finland’s official website promotes metal as a form of Finnish art and culture: “By definition, heavy metal fans crave music from outside the mainstream. They champion material that boldly stands out against the normality of pop” (Weaver).The focus on Nordic metal existing “outside” the mainstream is commensurate with understandings of extreme metal as “on the edge of music” (Kahn-Harris 5). Such sentiments are situated in a wider regional narrative that sees the Nordic region at the geographic “edge” of Europe, as remote and isolated (Grimley 2). The apparent isolation that enables the distinctiveness of “Nordic” forms of extreme metal is, however, potentially undercut by the widespread circulation of “Nordicness” as a particular brand.“Nordic extreme metal” can be understood as both a generic and place-based scene, where genre and geography “cross cut and coincide in complex ways” (Kahn-Harris 99). The Bergen black metal sound, for example, much like the Gothenburg death metal sound, is both a geographic and stylistic marker that is replicated in different contexts.This Nordic branding of musical styles is further affirmed by the wider means through which “Nordic”, “Scandinavian” and the “North” become interchangeable frameworks for the marketing of particular styles of extreme metal. “Nordic metal”, Von Helden thus argues, “is a trademark and a best seller” (33).Nordicness as Exclusory Belonging and AncestryMarketing strategies that rely on constructions of Nordic metal as “beyond the mainstream” at once exotify and homogenise the “Nordic”. Sentiments of an “imagined community of Nordicness” (Lucas, Deeks and Spracklen 279) have created problematic boundaries of who, or what, may be represented in such categories.Understandings of “Nordicness” as a site of generic “purity” (Moynihan and Søderlind 32) are therefore both tacitly and explicitly underscored by projections of ethnic purity and “belonging”. As such, where we have previously considered the cultural capital of the “Nordic” as it emerges as a particular branding exercise, here we examine the exclusory impetus of homogenous understandings of the Nordic.Nordicness in this context connotes explicitly racialised value, which interpellates images of Viking heathenry to enable fantasies of the pure, white North. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the context of Norwegian black metal, which bases its own self-mythologising in explicitly Nordic parameters. Norwegian black metal bands and members of the broader scene have often taken steps to continually affirm their Nordicness through various representational strategies. The widespread church burnings associated with the early Norwegian black metal scene, for instance, can be framed as a radical rejection of Christianity and an embracing of Norway’s Viking, pagan past.The ethnoromanticisation of Nordic regions and landscapes is underscored by problematic projections of national belonging. An interest in pagan mythology, as Kahn-Harris notes, can easily become an interest in racism and fascism (41). The “uncritical celebration of pagan pasts, the obsession with the unpolluted countryside and the distrust of the cosmopolitan city” that mark much Norwegian black metal were also common features of early fascist and racist movements (Kahn-Harris 41).Norwegian black metal has thus been able to link the genre, as a global music commodity, to “the conscious revival of myths and ideologies of an ancient northern European history and nationalist culture” (Lucas, Deeks and Spracklen 279). The conscious revival of such myths materialised in the early Norwegian scene in deliberately racist sentiments. Mayhem drummer Jan Axel Blomberg (“Hellhammer”) demonstrates this in his brief declaration that “Black metal is for white people” (in Moynihan and Søderlind 305); similarly, Darkthrone’s original back cover of Transylvanian Hunger (1994) prominently featured the phrase “Norsk Arisk Black Metal” (“Norwegian Aryan Black Metal”). Nordicness as exclusory white, Aryan identity is further mobilised in the National Socialist Black Metal scene, which readily caters to ontological constructions of Nordic whiteness (Spracklen, True Aryan; Hagen).However, Nordicness is also given racialised value in more tacit, but nonetheless troubling ways in wider Nordic folk and Viking metal scenes. The popular association of Vikings with Nordic folk metal has enabled such figures to be dismissed as performative play or camp romanticism, ostensibly removed from the extremity of black metal. Such metal scenes and their appeals to ethnosymbolic patriarchs nevertheless remain central to the ongoing construction of Nordic metal as a site that enables the instrumentality of Northern European whiteness precisely through hiding such whiteness in plain sight (Spracklen, To Holmgard, 359).The ostensibly “camp” performance of bands such as Sweden’s Amon Amarth, Faroese act Týr, or Finland’s Korpiklaani distracts from the ways in which Nordicness, and its realisations through Viking and Pagan symbolism, emerges as a claim to ethnic exclusivity. Through imagining the Viking as an ancestral, genetic category, the “common past” of the Nordic people is constructed as a self-identity apart from other people (Blaagaard 11).Furthermore, the “Viking” itself has cultural capital that has circulated beyond Northern Europe in both inclusive and exclusive ways. Nordic symbolism and mythologies are invoked within the textual aesthetics of heavy metal communities across the globe–there are Viking metal bands in Australia, for instance. Further, the valorising of the “North” in metal discourse draws on the symbols of particular ethnic traditions to give historicity and local meaning to white identity.Lucas, Deeks and Spracklen map the rhetorical power of the “North” in English folk metal. However, the same international flows of Nordic cultural capital that have allowed for the success and distinctiveness of Nordic extreme metal have also enabled the proliferation of increasingly exclusionary practices. A flyer signed by the “Wiking Hordes” in May of 1995 (in Moynihan and Søderlind 327) warns that the expansion of black and death metal into Asia, Eastern Europe and South America posed a threat to the “true Aryan” metal community.Similarly, online discussions of the documentary Pagan Metal, in which an interviewee states that a Brazilian Viking metal band is “a bit funny”, shifted between assertions that enjoyment should not be restricted by cultural heritage and declarations that only Nordic bands could “legitimately” support Viking metal. Giving Nordicness value as a form of insular, ethnic belonging has therefore had exclusory and problematic implications for how metal scenes market their dominant symbols and narratives, particularly as scenes continue to grow and diversify across multiple national contexts.Nordicness as Liberal DemocracyNordicness in heavy metal, as we have argued, has been ascribed cultural capital as both a branded, generic phenomenon and as a marker of ancestral, ethnonational belonging. Understandings of “Nordic” as an exclusory ethnic category marked by strict boundaries however come into conflict with the Nordic region’s self-perceptions as a liberal democracy.We propose an additional iteration for “Nordicness” as a means of pointing to the tensions that emerge between particular metallic imaginings of the “North” as a remote, uncompromising site of pagan liberty, and the material realities of modern Nordic nation states. We consider some new parameters for articulations of “Nordicness” in metal scenes: Nordicness as material and political conditions that have enabled the popularity of heavy metal in the region, and furthermore, the manifestations of such liberal democratic discourses in Nordic extreme metal scenes.Nordicness as a cultural, political brand is based in perceptions of the Nordic countries as “global good citizens”, “peace loving”, “conflict-resolution oriented” and “rational” (Loftsdóttir and Jensen 2). This modern conception of Nordicness is grounded in the region’s current political climate, which took its form in the post-World War II rejection of fascism and the following refugee crisis.Northern Europe’s reputation as a “famously tolerant political community” (Dworkin 487) can therefore be seen, one on hand, as a crucial disconnect from the intolerant North mediated by factions of Nordic extreme metal scenes and on the other, a political community that provides the material conditions which allow extreme metal to flourish. Nordicness here, we argue, is a crucial form of scenic infrastructure–albeit one that has been both celebrated and condemned in the sites and spaces of Nordic extreme metal.The productivity and stability of extreme metal in the Nordic countries has been attributed to a variety of institutional factors: the general relative prosperity of Northern Europe (Terry), Scandinavian legal structures (Maguire 156), universal welfare, high levels of state support for cultural development, and a broad emphasis on musical education in schools.Kahn-Harris argues that the Swedish metal scene is supported by the strength of the Swedish music industry and “Swedish civil society in general” (108). Music education is strongly supported by the state; Sweden’s relatively generous welfare and education system also “provide [an] effective subsidy for music making” (108). Furthermore, he argues that the Swedish scene has benefited from being closer to the “cultural mainstream of the country than is the case in many other countries” (108). Such close relationships to the “cultural mainstream” also invite a critical backlash against the state. The anarchistic anti-government stance of Swedish hardcore bands or the radical individualism of Norwegian black metal embodies this backlash.Early black metal is seen as a targeted response to the “oppressive and numbing social democracy which dominated Norwegian political life” (Moynihan and Søderlind 32). This spurning of social democracy is further articulated by Darkthrone founder Fenriz, who states that black metal “…is every man for himself… It is individualism above all” (True Norwegian Black Metal). Nordic extreme metal’s emphasis on independence and anti-modernity is hence immediately troubled by the material reality of the conditions that allow it to flourish. Nordicness thus gains complex realisation as both radical individualism and democratic infrastructural conditions.In looking towards future directions for expressions of the “Nordic” in extreme metal scenes, we want to consider how Nordicness can be articulated not as exclusory ethnic belonging and individualist misanthropy, but rather illustrate how Nordic scenes have also proffered sites for progressive, anti-racist discourses that speak to the cultural branding of the North as a tolerant political community.Imaginings of the North as ethnically homogenous or pure are complicated by Nordic bands and fans who actively critique such racialised discourses, and instead situate “Nordic” metal as a site of heterogeneity and anti-racist activism. The liberal politics of the region are most clearly articulated in the music of Swedish hardcore and extreme metal bands, particularly those originating in the northern university town of Umeå. Like much of Europe’s underground music scene, Umeå hardcore bands are often aligned with the anti-fascist movement and its message of tolerance and active anti-racist, anti-homophobic and anti-sexist resistance and protest. Refused is the most well-known example, speaking out against capitalism and in favour of animal rights and civil liberties. Scandinavian DIY acts have also long played a crucial role in facilitating the global diffusion of anti-capitalist punk and hardcore music (Haenfler 287).Nonetheless, whilst such acts remain important sites of progressive discourses in homogenous constructions of Nordicness, such an argument for tolerance and diversity is difficult to maintain when the majority of the scene’s successful bands are made up of white, ethnically Scandinavian men. As such, in moving towards future considerations for Nordicness in extreme metal scenes, we thus call into focus a fragmentation of “Nordicness”, precisely to divorce it from homogenous constructions of the “Nordic”, and enable greater critical interrogation and plurality of the notion of the “North” in metal scholarship.ConclusionThis article has pointed towards a multiplicity of Nordic discourses that unfold in metal: Nordic as a marketing tool, Nordic as an ethnic signifier, and Nordic as the political reality of liberal democratic Northern Europe–and the tensions that emerge in their encounters and intersections. In arguing for multiple understandings of “Nordicness” in metal, we contend that the cultural capital that accompanies the “Nordic” actually emerges as a series of fragmented, often conflicting categories.In examining how images of the North as an isolated location at the edge of the world inform the branded construction of Nordic metal as sites of presumed authenticity, we considered how scenes such as Swedish death metal and Norwegian black metal were marketed precisely through their Nordicness, where their geographic isolation from the commercial centre of heavy metal was used to affirm their “Otherness” to their mainstream metal counterparts. This “otherness” has in turn enabled constructions of Nordic metal scenes as sites of not only metallic purity in their isolation from “commercial” metal scenes, but also ethnic homogeneity. Nordicness, in this instance, becomes inscribed with explicitly racialised value that interpellates images of Viking heathenry to bolster phantasmic imaginings of the pure, white North.However, as we argue in the third section, such exclusory narratives of Nordic belonging come into conflict with Northern Europe’s own self image as a site of progressive liberal democracy. We argue that Nordicness here can be taken as a political imperative towards socialist democracy, wherein such conditions have enabled the widespread viability of extreme metal; yet also invited critical backlashes against the modern political state.Ultimately, in responding to our own research question–what is the cultural capital of “Nordicness” in metal?–we assert that such capital is realised in multiple iterations, undermining any possibility of a uniform category of “Nordicness”, and exposing its political tensions and paradoxes. 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