What do we mean when we say "the people"? In a Nordic context, the word "people" was historically associated not with members of a sovereign nation but of a household, church, or state. The term remains a battlefield of mixed or even opposing interests and has developed at least three different meanings: a political unit, a cultural entity, and a social multitude.

Modern historian Ove Korsgaard focuses on the crucial struggles over who has (or has not) belonged to the people over the past 175 years, and elucidates their implications for state and nation building in Denmark and other Nordic countries.