Per Wisselgren is Associate Professor in Sociology at Umea University in, Sweden. Along with Rickard Danell and Anna Larsson he is one of the editors of Social Science in Context: Historical, Sociological and Global Perspectives (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2013). He was also co-editor with Anders Ekstrom, Solveig Julich and Frans Lundgren of History of Participatory Media: Politics and Publics, 1750-2000 (New York: Routledge, 2011).
'Abroad, Sweden's welfare state system is as famous as the four letter furniture store. Fewer people are familiar with the socio-historical background of the first. Per Wissengren's book offers a detailed portrait of the debates on the 19th century social question and the rise of the social sciences which lead to the model welfare system.' Christian Fleck, University of Graz, Austria