Sweden

Abstract

Ironically, famous for its neutrality during the World Wars, Sweden was in earlier centuries a byword for violence: Europe quivered before the Vikings, King Gustav II Adolf and King Charles XII. Although the Roman historian Tacitus mentioned the Sviones (Swedes) or Svear in his famous Germania of 98 AD, little is known of Swedish history before the tenth century or how the Swedes in Svealand around modern Uppsala and the Goths further south in Gotaland came to be united in an independent state. More is known of the Swedish warrior-trader Vikings who cultivated the trade routes through the Baltic and Russia to the Black Sea and the Byzantine Empire. Some settled and one tribe, the Rus, gave their name to Russia.