Theatrum Œconomicum: Anders Berch and the Dramatization of the Swedish Improvement Discourse

Abstract

As Sweden emerged from the 30 Years’ War, it was clear to the nation’s elites that Sweden had to generate substantially more material wealth to take advantage of its newfound geopolitical power. Knowledge about how to best transform nature took center stage. While improvers, such as Christopher Polhem, Carl Linnaeus, and Anders Berch, valued new discoveries, they were equally concerned with the thorough dissemination of useful natural knowledge. Sweden’s first professor of Political Economy, Berch, developed a new pedagogical approach to teach the practice of improvement. Convinced that useful natural knowledge could not be taught by words alone, or even by illustrations, Berch assembled a large collection of materials, commodities, and mechanical devices in his Theatrum Ekonomicum, to be used in his teaching. By seeing the transformation of nature performed in front of their eyes, students came to understand the principles and properties of nature and realized both the potential and the limitations of existing knowledge to facilitate the improvement of the nation.

The author thanks Ken Carpenter, Monica Miller, Erik Reinert, Philipp Rössner, Lisa Tiersten, Andre Wakefield, and Sophie Wilkowske for comments on earlier drafts. Thanks to Mårten Granert and Jenny Svennås-Gillner for generous assistance with images and Christel Kraft for helping with archival material.