"The People of the North have been the source of liberty in Europe, that is to say of almost all that liberty that we see today amon men," Montesquieu said in 1748, drawing on a tradition that went back to antiquity. Down the centuries, as vikings, warriors, storytellers, scientists, artists and builders of societies, the people of the Nordic countries have borne out this view. Fine-meshed networks have evolved between the Nordic Region and the rest of the continent. An understanding of the North has always been crucial to an understanding of Europe - and is no less relevant amid the changes sweeping Europe n the 1990s. The cover shows part of the Carta marina, a map of the Nordic countries made in the 1530s by Italian artists on the instructions of Olaus Magnus.