ABSTRACT
The Nobel Prize Laureate, Sir Lawrence Bragg, made a visit to neutral Sweden during the middle of the Second World War under the auspices of the British Council. The Council established itself in Sweden in 1941 to try to promote British life and thought to Swedish elites, including the leading members of the Swedish scientific community. Bragg's visit was one of a number that the Council facilitated. He visited the main cities and gave academic and popular lectures about his research – X-Rays and electron microscopes – and broader British scientific progress. Although the visit was targeted at the scientific community, his presence was reported in the Swedish press and therefore reached a broader audience. Various media forms – his personal interactions through lectures and social events such as dinners and film shows, the exchanges of scientific papers and journals, reporting in the Swedish press, as well as radio broadcasts following his visit – co-existed and complemented each other as part of a web of entangled interactions. This chapter will outline the purpose and details of his visit and explore its lasting significance as a tactical exchange through applying a model of “cultural propaganda” and exploring other related concepts such as “science diplomacy”.
