Swedish economic history and the ‘New Atlantic Economy’: iron production and iron markets in the eighteenth century

"Swedish early modern economic history has to a large extent been dominated by the iron industry. This is easily explained as that industry was, next to agriculture, the most important sector of the Swedish economy. Iron was made at nearly 500 ironworks, or bruk, scattered around in Bergslagen, the large ironmaking region in central Sweden. The export of bar iron dominated Swedish trade, accounting for as much as 75 per cent of total value of exports. A very large number of studies have been undertaken, and the literature is large and somewhat difficult to grasp. However, most of the studies are a bit out-dated, and the current orthodoxy was formed many years ago. One of the most blatant flaws in the history of the Swedish iron trade is the restricted national perspective, a problem that has been exposed by very recent developments within the field of Global History. Apart from a few attempts by scholars such as Eli Heckscher and Karl-Gustaf Hildebrand, who discussed the presence of Swedish iron on the British market, no substantial study has dwelt upon any international aspect of Swedish ironmaking, and the distribution of iron on international markets. With as much as 80-90 per cent of total production of bar iron being sold on foreign markets during the eighteenth century this flaw is a serious one. The aim of this paper is to reinstate the Swedish iron trade into its global context. The links between Swedish iron production and global markets will be analysed. It will be argued that Swedish iron was an essential commodity in the British rise to supremacy in the Atlantic World. The starting point is a complex of ironworks north of Stockholm where a high-quality iron destined was made. This iron was very suitable for steel-making, and it was soon monopolised by British merchants. Steel manufacture in Britain, which was expanding very rapidly in the early eighteenth century in response to Atlantic demand, came to depend absolutely on Swedish inputs."