Alva Myrdal: The Passionate Mind

Alva Myrdal, the scholarly partner and wife of Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal, was an innovative social scientist and thinker in her own right. She helped to lay the intellectual foundations of Sweden's social welfare state, pioneered educational innovations, and became an activist for human rights. Her extensive disarmament efforts won her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. At the same time, she struggled with many of the issues that today's ambitious women still find challenging. Myrdal's published work and the choices she made in her life spoke to the tensions that these conflicts produced and to the ways she tried to reconcile them. Hers is a remarkable and dramatic story that transcends borders and has particular resonance today. Yvonne Hirdman's biography of Alva Myrdal has been published to great acclaim in Sweden. In it, she creates an intimate, impassioned portrait of one of the great women of the 20th century.

Author: Yvonne Hirdman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 06/25/2008
Pages: 448
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.99lbs
Size: 9.52h x 6.64w x 1.38d
ISBN: 9780253351326

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 08/08/2008 pg. 16
Choice 07/01/2009

About the Author

Yvonne Hirdman is Professor of Gender History at the University of Stockholm. She is author or co-author of more than ten books on women's and labor history and the welfare state. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

Linda Schenck's translations include works by Selma Lagerlöf, Kerstin Ekman, and Majgull Axelsson.