Från gastkramning till gatuvåld. En etnologisk studie av svenska rädslor

This book is the product of a research concerning fears. Its major object is to demonstrate how fears are structured by different cultural enviroments, and to show how such are formulated and expressed.
The important perspective lies in the documentation, analysis and comparison of modern folklore with that of pre-industrial society. Being anchored in the collective fears of these two forms of social life, wich find expression in popular folklore, the aim has been to study the cultural, social and emotional organization of fears.
This book has succeded in showing how expressions of fear change through time. Compared with the clearer and more goaldirected traditional fears of pre-industrial society, modern fears have a more diffuse and uncertain character. Fewer people today can agree upon what is to be considered dangerous and what needs to be done. Fears are more often seen as private matters primarily related to a given individual.