The Sweden of then and now

What Brown does do, however, is provide a series of first-hand accounts of the Sweden that he encountered some 30 years ago, a society which was proudly social democratic, civic-minded, sober and internationalist, if at times a little bit prim and socially conservative.

Today, though, it's barely any different politically from other Western industrialised countries.

Brown is fairly elusive on where he stands about the path that Sweden has taken and his work on the Spectator, of all magazines, can't really have helped in this respect. But there is plenty of material here that Morning Star readers will appreciate about the effects of introducing turbo-capitalism, rootless consumerism, spiralling levels of inequality and attacks upon the welfare state, an increase in crime levels and anti-social behaviour being among them.

Brown also has, despite some misgivings throughout his life, an evident love for Swedish people and their hauntingly beautiful environment. This book is worth looking at just for the fantastic passages on the country's climate and landscape, literary gems in the best tradition of nature writing.

STEVE ANDREW