In Stockholm in January of 1945, an assembly of Swedish diplomats and businessmen initiated an organization that was to improve the country's reputation abroad. The new, semi-governmental Swedish Institute was charged with explaining Sweden's policy of neutrality during the war, with encouraging peace-building, and with promoting foreign trade in the new international world order. Original and insightful, this account analyzes the policies, funding, and national narratives of the Swedish Institute. Providing a historical perspective on the politics of Swedish propaganda and explaining how ideas of communication shaped the Institute's work and its representations of Sweden, this record also offers a comparative perspective on American national identity and its inherent notions of national exceptionalism.

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• CHAPTER 1 - The Swedish Institute and inter-nationalism
  • A necessary yet indefinable invention
  • Perspectives on public diplomacy
  • Historicising communication
  • Inter-national identities
  • The shape of things to come
• CHAPTER 2 - Forerunners and frames 1945
  • The British Council and the Danish Society
  • Interests representing Sweden
  • Ideas about transmissions and rituals
  • Narratives of being special in a normal sense
• CHAPTER 3 - Survival in an age of enlightenment 1945−1953
  • Creating organisational space
  • Truth, control and therapy
  • A blueprint of the nation
• CHAPTER 4 - Stabilised support, imagining the image 1954−1962
  • Combining technical assistance and business
  • Capturing the image of Sweden
  • The personification of the nation
• CHAPTER 5 - The politics of change 1961−1962
  • A brief financial history
  • Trade policy, neutrality and peace-keeping
• CHAPTER 6 - Professionalised structures, fragmenting visions 1963−1970
  • A cultural institute in a state of capitalism
  • Public relations and the public’s relations of the nation
  • Interpretations of the nation
• CHAPTER 7 - Chronologies in context
  • A history of contested claims
  • The communication(isation) of enlightenment
  • Narratives from fact to friction
  • Three arguments about the history of national relations
• CHAPTER 8 - National relations in world society
  • Introducing the macroperspective
  • Sweden, the US and modernity
  • Sweden Ltd. and the status quo
• Summary
• Appendix - Selected productions
• Notes
• References
• Acknowledgements
• About the author