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Leos Müller

About me

I am Professor of History, Maritime History and Director of the Centre for Maritime Studies, CEMAS

I have being studying  Sweden's place in global history during the early modern period and I became interested in global history as a new international field of history research.

I have published about Sweden's foreign trade, shipping and the East India Company. Most recently, I have been interested in the long history of neutrality and its role in the development of international law, from the early modern period to the present day. The results of this research are books Neutrality in World History (2019) and 200 Years of Peace, written and edited together with Nevra Biltekin & Magnus Petersson (2022).

In another project (2019-2023) I have studied Sweden's and Denmark's neutral shipping through British prize cases in the archival collection called Prize Papers. From 2021, I lead a big interdisciplinary research program on the Swedish sailing fleet, c. 1450-1850, funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The program is a collaboration between Stockholm University, the State Maritime and Transport History Museums, and the Finnish Heritage Agency.

Research

Research Areas:

  • Maritime history
  • Global history
  • Economic and diplomatic history
  • 18th-century studies

Ongoing research:

In my ongoing research I study Swedish shipping and trade in the 18th century. In the focus is the complicated relationship between foreign policy and economic development. Sweden was neutral in many 18th-century conflicts and Swedish shipping and trade prospered. As the director of the Centre for Maritime Studies I stay for an open understanding of maritime history, from 16th-century naval warfare to the present container revolution. I am one of editors of the new textbook on Sweden’ maritime history Sjövägen till Sverige. Från 1500-talet till våra dagar (Seaway to Sweden. From the 16th Century to Present, 2016). I am also deeply interested in the field of global history.

Research projects

In pursuit of global knowledge: Scandinavian ocean travelers 1650-1810

Which foreign languages were spoken among 18th century Scandinavian sailors? How would a captain manage politics whilst at sea? What happens if we consider global circulation of knowledge "from below"? These are a few questions that the "Prize Papers", documents from over 3500 Scandinavian ships seized by Great Britain between 1650 and 1810, can help answer.

Three ships, two with swedish flags oand one with british flag. Gunfire from the British ship.

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Neutrality in World History

    2019. Leos Müller.

    Book

    Neutrality in World History provides a cogent synthesis of five hundred years of neutrality in global history. Author Leos Müller argues that neutrality and neutral states, such as Switzerland, Sweden and Belgium, have played an important historical role in implementing the free trade paradigm, shaping the laws of nations and humanitarianism, and serving as key global centres of trade and finance. Offering an intriguing alternative to dominant world history narratives, which hinge primarily on the international relations and policies of empires and global powers, Neutrality in World History provides students with a distinctive introduction to neutrality’s place in world history.

    Read more about Neutrality in World History

  • Facing the Sea: Essays in Swedish Maritime Studies

    2021. .

    Book (ed)

    The sea has many faces. Some are calm and welcoming, others ferocious and death-dealing. For centuries of human history, the sea has seen peaceful trade and war, life and death and failure.

    In Facing the Sea we meet Swedish experiences of the sea. We can read about smugglers from the Åland Islands, about British privateers seizing Swedish ships, and about Swedish naval officers defending the honour of the flag. We also learn what a disaster at sea or the salvage of a shipwreck can say about past and present societies, and why more and more Swedes choose burial at sea for their loved ones. We hear the voices of children who made the dangerous escape to Sweden in wartime by crossing the Baltic Sea.

    These are a few of the stories written by the eleven researchers who present a smorgasbord of recent work carried out at the Centre for Maritime Studies (CEMAS) at Stockholm University. The contributors are historians, ethnologists, and maritime archaeologists associated with the centre.

    Read more about Facing the Sea

  • Unimpeded Sailing: A Critical Edition of Johann Gröning's Navigatio Libera (Extended 1698 Edition)

    2018. Peter Maxwell-Stuart, Steve Murdoch, Leos Müller.

    Book

    The original Latin text of Johann Gröning’s Navigatio libera has never before been translated into any modern vernacular language. Gröning’s intention was to set out the position of neutral nations (in this case the Danes and Swedes), and their right to pursue trade during the wars of the great maritime powers (particularly the English and the Dutch). It specifically sought to engage with and refute the work of Hugo Grotius while taking cognisance of the critique of Gröning’s work by Samuel Pufendorf. The text serves as a bridge between 17th-century polemical discourse surrounding the ‘free sea’versus ‘enclosed sea’ debate and later 18th-century legal literature on the rights of neutrals and the continuation of free trade in time of war.

    Read more about Unimpeded Sailing

  • Sjövägen till Sverige: från 1500-talet till våra dagar

    2016. .

    Book (ed)

    För första gången tar Sveriges främsta maritima forskare ett helhetsgrepp på det maritima området Sverige och Norden. Sjövägen till Sverige lyfter fram kunskapen om havets centrala roll i Sveriges samtid och historia. Det handlar om de långa historiska linjerna, från Gustav Vasas tid till idag. Bokens första del ger en bred introduktion till svenska sjökrig och örlogsflottans historia, utrikeshandel och sjöfart, skeppsvarvens historia, fiske och passagerarsjöfart. Den andra delen innehåller mer avgränsade utblickar. Här behandlas ämnensom sjömanstatueringar, hummerfiske, det unika svenska intressetför fritidsbåtar mm. I stort som smått visar perspektiven på hur viktigt havet varit för både nationen och dess människor. Att detta förhållande behöver framhållas i en egen bok förklaras kanske av att havet är ständigt närvarande och ändå lätt glöms bort. Inte minst gäller det havets och sjöfartens betydelse i den svenskahistorieberättelsen.

    Read more about Sjövägen till Sverige

  • Swedish East India trade in a value-added analysis, c. 1730–1800

    2022. Klas Rönnbäck, Leos Müller. Scandinavian Economic History Review 70 (1), 1-18

    Article

    The narrative of the Swedish East India Company (SEIC) is a well-known part of Sweden’s eighteenth century history. The company is known as a profitable venture, the only successful chartered company in Sweden, but with a limited impact upon the country’s economic development. In this paper, we employ a value-chain analysis to estimate the Swedish East India trade’s magnitude in terms of value-added. The results show that the success of the company was not based on monopolised domestic market in Sweden, a typical strategy of big chartered companies. The most valuable line of SEIC’s business (Chinese teas) was rather based on re-exports to other countries in Europe. Our quantitative estimates also show that the Swedish East India trade eventually made up a non-negligible share, and in particular a major share of the transport and trade sectors, of the Swedish economy during a long part of the eighteenth century.

    Read more about Swedish East India trade in a value-added analysis, c. 1730–1800

Show all publications by Leos Müller at Stockholm University

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