Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians, on and off, for over ten years, perplexed by their many strange and paradoxical character traits and equally bemused by the unquestioning enthusiasm for all things Nordic that ф has engulfed the rest of the world. He leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success and, most intriguing of all, what they think of each other. Along the way a more nuanced, often darker, picture emerges of a region plagued by taboos, characterised by suffocating parochialism and populated by extremists of various shades.