The rise and fall of the Swedish fiscal-military state, c. 1700-1850

The purpose of the planned sabbatical in 2026 is to work on a monograph detailing the rise and fall of the Swedish fiscal-military state from around 1700 to 1850. This was a period when public debt became increasingly important for European states, which tried to handle the discrepancies between existing revenues and increases in demand for resources due to the spiraling costs of warfare. In the literature, these processes have mostly been explored in northwestern European states, while scholars have tended to ignore developments in northern and eastern parts of Europe. Thus, there is no single study that detail these processes and their economic, political and social consequences in Sweden. The analysis will use a global history perspective, but also examine developments in other European states, such as Denmark-Norway and Prussia, which had a similar position in the global financial system, and in the international states system as Sweden. The proposed monograph will be based on findings from a number of externally funded research projects that Winton have been involved in since 2008. The findings have been published in several articles, but in order to understand the more long-term developments in Sweden and how they relate to the situations in other states as well as different global exchanges of capital and information, it is necessary to make a synthesis of the work. Part of the sabbatical will spent at Bielefeld University where there is a broad expertise in history.