The history of the Norwegian parliament

Abstract

Abstract At last Norway has a comprehensive account1 of the history of its parliament, the Storting, since it was established in 1814. In four massive volumes of more than 1,900 pages the authors deal with the role of the Storting in Norwegian political and social development. The first volume covers the period up to 1869, the second takes us to 1908, and the third to 1964. Volume IV contains eighteen articles by various authors on a number of specialised topics throughout most of the period. The first two volumes present systematic material about the com position of the Storting, its rules of procedure, its constitutional competence, and the main political problems throughout the period. The third volume treats the first two topics and inter-party alignments, then presents the history of Norwegian politics in chronological form. The first two volumes were written by professional historians. Except for an introductory article by one of the grand old men among Norwegian historians, Professor Sverre Steen of the University of Oslo, the first volume is the work of Professor AH Kaartvedt, and the second of Docent Rolf Danielsen, of the University of Bergen. Both Kaartvedt and Danielsen have once again shown beyond doubt that they are first-rate historians.