Anu Partanen

"Individualism is one of the great foundations of Western culture. But unless society secures personal independence and basic security for the individual, it can lead to disaffection, anxiety, and chao…"

"For example, for all the gender equality in Nordic societies, Nordic women are still less likely to work as managers than are American women. So, is the answer for Nordic women to become American-styl…"

"America’s reign of optimism contributes to a culture in which negative feelings are often unwelcome. As I pondered the question Americans often posed to me—Why aren’t Finns more optimistic, despite th…"

"All told, thanks to these various forms of freedom from the old-fashioned logistical dependence on one’s parents, children in Nordic countries have an easier time successfully managing the transition …"

"What Lars Trägårdh came to understand during his years in the United States was that the overarching ambition of Nordic societies during the course of the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first,…"

"This approach creates fewer strains between family members, because those individuals don’t have to make the sort of extreme sacrifices that can cause them to lose their independence, which so often f…"

"Gradually it dawned on me how much people in America depended on their employers for all sorts of things that were unimaginable to me: medical care, health savings accounts, and pension contributions,…"

"Trägårdh and his collaborator—a well-known Swedish historian and journalist named Henrik Berggre—put together their observations on individualism and formulated something they called “the Swedish theo…"