Peter Englund (born April 4, 1957) is a Swedish author and historian, and a member of the Swedish Academy since 2002.
Englund was born into a military family in Boden and studied caretaking for two years and then humanistic subjects for another two years in secondary school. He was then conscripted and served 15 months in the Swedish Army at the Norrbotten Regiment located in Boden. He was politically active in his youth and supported the FNL.
Englund studied archaeology, history, and theoretical philosophy at Uppsala University, completing a bachelor's degree in 1983, after which he began doctoral studies in History. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1989 for his dissertation Det hotade huset ("The Threatened House") (1989), an investigation of the worldview of the 17th century Swedish nobility. During his period as a doctoral student, he had also worked for some time for the Swedish Military Intelligence Service ("MUST"), and the year before being awarded his doctorate he had published the bestselling Poltava, a detailed description of the Battle of Poltava, where the troops of Swedish king Charles XII were defeated by the Russian army of Tsar Peter I in 1709.
Englund has been rewarded with the August Prize (1993) and the Selma Lagerlöf Prize for Literature (2002). He was elected a member of the Swedish Academy in 2002.
Englund writes non-fiction books and essays, mainly about history, and especially about the Rise of Sweden as a Great Power, but also about other historical events. He writes in very accessible style, providing narrative details usually omitted in typical books about history. His books gained popularity and vere translated into several languages - e.g. German, Czech.
Bibliography
- Poltava ("Poltava") (1988)
- Det hotade huset ("The Threatened House") (1989)
- Förflutenhetens landskap ("The Landscape of the Past") (1991), collection of essays
- Ofredsår ("Years of Warfare") (1993), Sweden during Thirty Years War with Erik Dahlberg at the centre of the book
- Brev från nollpunkten ("Letters from Ground Zero") (1996), collection of essays about modern history
- Den oövervinnerlige ("The Invincible") (2000), on Sweden’s period as a Great Power
- Tystnadens historia ("History of Silence") (2004)