As the contents of this issue are concerned, we must highlight first of all two language-specific contributions, authored respectively by Egill Arnarson and Fabio Quartino. The former is an introduction to the thought of Giambattista Vico for the Icelandic readership of our journal. The latter is a complete degree thesis outlining the constitutional history of Iceland for our Italian readers. Together, these two contributions fulfill our journal’s goal of facilitating cultural exchanges between Italy and Iceland. The remaining new articles selected for publication deal with legal (Adriana Di Stefano [delayed for technical reasons], Giovanni Damele), political (Monica Quirico) and ethical topics (Øjvind Larsen, Matthias Kettner), thus furthering our previous publications in these areas of inquiry.
It should be noted that the contributions by Larsen and Kettner stem from papers presented last January at the first meeting of the new study group established under the aegis of a longtime partner of our journal, i.e. the Nordic Summer University. Four conference papers (Siipi & Ahteensuu; Rendtorff; Räikkä & Weyermann; Peterková) delivered upon the same occasion are also included in this issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum. An introduction to the group itself and the materials published in our journal is provided on the front page of this issue by the group’s coordinator, Dr Jacob Dahl Rendtorff, whom we congratulate and to whom we express our gratitude.
As customary for Nordicum-Mediterraneum, the current issue carries a review essay and several reviews of volumes that were submitted by various publishers to our journal. Please make sure that you check regularly the “news” on our homepage in order to be informed about any new books that become available for review.
This issue concludes with a follow-up to the special section on the international economic crisis that was included in last year’s regular issue. Specifically, Nordicum-Mediterraneum interviewed Huginn Freyr Þorsteinsson, Political Advisor to the current Icelandic Minister of Finance, so as to assess the ways in which Iceland has responded to the crash of 2008, to which pundits and analysts have recently begun to refer as the “Icelandic model” of economic recovery.