Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the Future that Disappeared
By Andrew Brown
Granta £16.99, 352 pages
FT Bookshop price: £13.59

The notion of Sweden as a modern democratic utopia has long beguiled the left and perplexed the right. Here is a country that seems to have achieved the impossible: a high tax, high welfare, highly prosperous economy, coupled with strong social cohesion, low levels of crime and an admired, if rather earnest, role in international affairs.