This publication has its origins during the conference  “FOI: Towards Open Government in the New Democracies”  held in Budapest  on May 5 -7 1992.

It was organised,  in the midst of the passage of the Hungarian Data Protection and Access to Data of Public Interest Bill,  by  Tom Riley, the Canadian inspiration behind the movement for freedom of information and Executive Secretary of the International Freedom of Information Institute.

Reacting to a question about what - or who – really lay behind Sweden’s Freedom of the  Printing Press Act 1766 which I raised in my paper, “The Historical Basis of the Right to Freedom of Information in Europe”,  Czech lawyer and delegate, Karl Koded,  then working for Energotechnika, pointed  me to the catalytic thoughts of Peter Forsskål  contained in his “Thoughts on Civil Liberty” (Tankar om Borgerliga Friheten),  printed by Lars Salvius of Stockholm, in November 1759.

My speculative letter to the Royal Library in Stockholm seeking a copy, brought a fulsome and informative response from Gunilla Jonsson,  then  Head, Reference Services and Historical Collections  – including a photocopy of  Forsskål’s work,  of course, in the original Swedish. 

Clearly, it cried out to be read in English. But, astoundingly, no English translation has ever been published.

This was first worked on during the 1990s by Theresa McGrane-Langvik (originally from Glasgow and Rolvsøy) and Maria Lindstedt (Löa).  Maria’s grandmother, Agnes Jansson (Gammelbo)  was involved too,  being helpful in making sense of some of the eighteenth century words.
Simply using the photocopy of a mid-eighteenth publication in the Swedish of the day,  their  efforts cannot be too highly commended.

Realising that the 250th anniversary o the 1759 publication was imminent, I convened an expert group to revise the earlier translation, consisting of:  Gunilla Jonsson;  Thomas von Vegesack;  Helena Jäderblom and Gunnar Persson.   David Shaw (Canterbury) helped to polish the English text.
Importantly, the translation presented in this book are of Forsskål’s  uncensored words.  The group worked from the original m/s,  located by Gunilla Jonsson in the National Archives. The salient differences between the original, uncensored version and the printed version are described fully in the book.

Finally then,  the non-Swedish speaking world can now grasp the intellectual background to Sweden’s 1766  gift to the modern world:  access to information, fostering  an “enlightened general public”. This, though, is but part of Forsskal’s  wider purpose  –  promoting the growth and sharing of general  knowledge.