Description from Goodreads.com:
Finland - 100 Years of Success is a birthday gift to a one-hundred-year-old Finland and a tribute to Finnish work and expertise. Through one hundred success stories, the book follows Finland's path from an agrarian society to a modern Nordic welfare state. The stories proceed through the stages of independent Finland, presenting one company, organisation, or product for each year according to when it was established or launched.
In addition to success stories, this book discusses the changes and achievements, struggles and low points of Finnish society by decade, binding one hundred stories to a larger whole - Finland. The resulting work has one singular message:
Together we have always been more.
Thoughts:
Whilst visiting Santa Claus' village in Rovaniemi, Finland, I spent more than 100 EUR buying souvenirs and so was given a copy of this book as some sort of bonus. I remember thinking 'oh no, not a book', a funny thought for a bibliophile, but I was already so close to my baggage limit that I loathed to try and cram something else in. Alas, I managed to get the book on the plane (I couldn't leave it behind, a book is still a book!) and as I progressed through all my other reading materials, I moved onto reading this. Its basically a look at 100 years of Finland through the lens of famous Finnish companies or organisations. To be honest, I kind of got sick of reading about how great Finland was by the end of it but I guess that's kind of the point. If you want a brief summary of Finland's recent history, this is certainly a unique way of getting it. And I only found one grammar mistake, so kudos to whoever did the English translation!
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