The "Wide Atlantic" is not so wide

[MadImmortalMan]

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10746


Too long to post on this board (dumb restriction, IMO), but interesting. I don't know who this guy is, but he's not American. He uses British spelling. And the mag is British too.

Crossposted.

[derspiess]

You butchered the link

Try this: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10746

[Razgovory]

The URL is illeagal.  You're a criminal.

[MadImmortalMan]

Oops. 

[Berkut]

I expect plenty of outrage and derisions for this author. Lord knows I get plenty of it when I say the same damn thing.

[Faeelin]

I expect plenty of outrage and derisions for this author. Lord knows I get plenty of it when I say the same damn thing.

You suck!

[Slargos]

Interesting article.

What pops out as the most hilarious factoid is



I've suspected for some time that the numbers would look this way, but I've never been able to (or rather, have never taken the time to) verify it.

Many of the commonly held axioms of Euro-US comparison are at best misconceptions, but I don't think a population indoctrinated for decades about how things "are" will swing around on the subject.

[MadImmortalMan]

I think a lot of those people affected by crime are things like muggings and pickpocketing, which are much more prevalent in Europe in my experience. But they're also more minor.

[lustindarkness]

Interesting, but I refuse to thank you for posting it and will not post colors.

[garbon]

Sorry but I don't go to British sites that I don't know.

[Josquius]

Interesting article.

What pops out as the most hilarious factoid is



I've suspected for some time that the numbers would look this way, but I've never been able to (or rather, have never taken the time to) verify it.

Many of the commonly held axioms of Euro-US comparison are at best misconceptions, but I don't think a population indoctrinated for decades about how things "are" will swing around on the subject.

Very strange that Sweden would score so high.

[Slargos]

Interesting article.

What pops out as the most hilarious factoid is



I've suspected for some time that the numbers would look this way, but I've never been able to (or rather, have never taken the time to) verify it.

Many of the commonly held axioms of Euro-US comparison are at best misconceptions, but I don't think a population indoctrinated for decades about how things "are" will swing around on the subject.

Very strange that Sweden would score so high.

I will remain modestly silent on the subject.

[citizen k]

Interesting article.

What pops out as the most hilarious factoid is



I've suspected for some time that the numbers would look this way, but I've never been able to (or rather, have never taken the time to) verify it.

Many of the commonly held axioms of Euro-US comparison are at best misconceptions, but I don't think a population indoctrinated for decades about how things "are" will swing around on the subject.

Very strange that Sweden would score so high.

Crime påys in Sweden                      TheStar.com - entertainment - Crime påys in Sweden                                                                                                                                                                                                            Some pretty Swede reads
Here are synopses of current books by the four Swedish crime writers reading at Harbourfront Centre Wednesday:
Håkan Nesser, The Return (Doubleday Canada): A
decapitated body is found in the woods. Chief Insp. Van Veeteren, the protagonist in all 10 of Nesser's crime novels, has reason to believe the man's death might be related to the possibility that he was falsely convicted.
Helene Tursten, The Glass Devil (Soho Crime): The third Tursten novel to feature
Göteberg Det. Insp. Irene Huss, who this time finds
herself investigating a Satanic cult suspected of murdering a church pastor, his wife and son.
Inger Frimansson, Good Night, My Darling (Caravel Books): This psychological thriller gets inside  the head of a deeply unhappy woman who takes
revenge on all of the people judged to have made her life miserable.
Kjell Eriksson, The Cruel Stars of the Night (St. Martin's Press): Set, like its predecessor The Princess of Burundi, in the central Swedish city Uppsala, the novel examines the
connections between the
mysterious deaths of two older men and the disappearance
of another.
Vit Wagner
                                                                                                                                                                     Crime writing hotbed despite nation's dearth of murder and mayhem,  by Vit Wagner
                                                                                                                                                                              April 21, 2007                                                                                              Vit Wagner
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Think of Henning Mankell as the Bjorn Borg of Swedish crime fiction.
Prior to Borg's arrival as a superstar in the mid-1970s, no one thought of Sweden when they thought of tennis. Soon enough, though, fans of the sport became intimately acquainted with the names of Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg and eventually Thomas Enqvist.
The same might be said of Mankell, author of a popular and smart series of police procedurals set in Skåne, the southernmost region of Sweden. Faceless Killers, Mankell's first novel rooted in the crime-solving acumen of brooding and emotionally maladjusted inspector Kurt Wallander, debuted in Sweden in 1991. His books have subsequently been translated into 27 other languages.
Mankell's success has helped put his country on the map as a hotbed of crime writing, paving the way for several other writers who are helping to satisfy the growing international appetite for murder and mayhem with a Scandinavian twist.
"He opened the door. We're riding the waves of Henning Mankell," says Håkan Nesser, one of four Swedish crime writers scheduled to appear at Harbourfront Centre Wednesday.
As part of the weekly series of International Readings, Nesser will delve into 1994's The Return, which has just been published in English. He will be joined on stage by compatriots Inger Frimansson, Kjell Eriksson and Helene Tursten.
The Return is the third of 10 crime books Nesser has published since 1993's The Wide-Meshed Net, all featuring Chief Insp. Van Veeteren as the intuitive protagonist. By the time the author made his English-language debut last year with Borkmann's Point (published in Sweden in 1994), his work had already been translated into 20 other languages. Initially, the translations were for surrounding Scandinavian countries, where crime fiction is also popular, and then beyond.
"Germany is the door-opener to the rest of Europe," says Nesser, citing Mankell's earlier penetration of the German market as a key event in the ensuing proliferation of Swedish crime writing.
"Between Germany, Switzerland and Austria, you have potentially 100 million readers in German. And, also, if you want to get published in Spain, the first thing they ask is, `Is he out in German?' That's when things can start rolling."
Last year, 84 indigenous crime novels were published in Sweden. The country of just more than 9 million is not particularly known as a hotbed of crime, but it hasn't been impervious to violence either. Particularly unsettling to the Swedish psyche was the 1986 assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was murdered on the streets of Stockholm while walking home from a movie theatre with his wife.
"In a way, Sweden has never recovered," says Swedish author and critic Marie Peterson. "Sweden changed, brutally, on almost every level, but this change was nowhere to be found in literature. No one explored it, analyzed it or wrote stories about it. Except the crime writers, starting with Mankell.
"This is one of the main reasons crime writing is so popular. It's modern, contemporary. It depicts society in a way that is easy to recognize and doesn't shy away from serious problems."
The four authors coming to Harbourfront reflect a variety of styles and approaches.
"You wouldn't mix them up if you read a story without knowing who the author was," says Helen Sigeland of the Swedish Institute. She does allow for certain similarities.
"Fifty years back, the stories were more stereotyped whodunits," she continues.
"Today, the writers spend more energy on their characters, quite often with moral dilemmas attached. It's no longer a question only of who the murderer is but also of why he or she committed the crime."
Says Nesser: "In general, the pace is slower. It's a European rhythm. There isn't as much action as you need to have in a U.S. crime novel."
And what's Nesser's theory on the current vitality of Swedish crime fiction as a cultural export?
"I'm in the middle of it, so I'm probably not supposed to say this, but in my most optimistic moments I think the reason Swedish crime fiction is so popular is because it's quite good."

http://www.vastsverige.com/templates/article____21345.aspx

[Sheilbh]

I've suspected for some time that the numbers would look this way, but I've never been able to (or rather, have never taken the time to) verify it.

What's interesting is what makes those figures up.  For example why does the UK have Euro-level murder rates and theft rates but considerably higher petty violence and muggings?

I agree entirely with this article.  There's no such thing as Europe.

[Richard Hakluyt]

When it comes to crime there is no such thing as the USA either 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004912.html

We will ignore DC, but the murder rate in Louisiana, for example, is 10 times the rate in South Dakota.

Same thing happens with the education statistics, USA is average but the individual states occur at all points on the spectrum; Minnesota is up there with the Scandis whereas Mississippi is more like Moldova