Roland Huntford - The New Totalitarians (1980)

In 1971, Roland Huntford, the Stockholm correspondent of The Observer, published his book The New Totalitarians. It is a book based on his long experience of Sweden and its systems, and he analyzes the Swedish system of ideas in comparison with the Soviet Union, George Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".

The New Totalitarians is a scathing indictment of the Swedish welfare state that interpreted it as the embodiment of the dystopian society Aldous Huxley had envisaged in Brave New World forty years earlier. Huntford's disturbing portrait of contemporary Sweden, in which he described the alleged sacrificing of individual freedom on the altar of social security, was published in both London and New York. It alarmed numerous reviewers and caused intense resentment and heated debate in the Swedish press and government. Indeed, partly out of fear that Huntford's critique could damage Sweden's reputation overseas, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs conducted research into the reactions of citizens whom he had quoted, an administrative exercise intended to undermine the credibility of his book.

A Swedish version with the title "The blind Sweden", (Det blinda Sverige) translated by Åke Ohlmarks, was published by Tema in 1972. There are also versions in Norwegian, Finnish, Danish, German, French and Portuguese, so one certainly can say that Huntford's accounts received very considerable attention around the world.

This revised edition was published in 1980.

Number of files: 1
Size: 1.70 MB
Format: pdf