Hello! Been looking for some books on modern Finnish history as a gift for a friend, and so far my search has turned up...well, a lot of books whose quality I cannot determine. AskHistorians has never let me down on this front before so I wanted to know if anybody has suggestions on texts covering Finland's history at and/or since independence. If something narrower than that time period is required, I think a book on the Cold War era would just about do it. Political-history is fine.
The two books generally recommended for those who are limited to English are Kirby's A Concise History of Finland and a latter and IMO better Meinander's History of Finland. Kirby focuses very much on the political history, which makes for a rather dry reading unless your friend is really into the schemings of Finnish agrarian party and left-wing politicians during the Cold War. Meinander (a professor of history in University of Helsinki) builds a more balanced and readable account, and is almost universally considered superior to Kirby's as an introductory text. There is also Haarmann's Modern Finland, whose table of contents looks very interesting (it seems to be an attempt to explain how modern Finland became modern Finland). However, I haven't read it and cannot find academic reviews of the book; on the other hand, I've understood that Haarmann is a legit and respected researcher so the book should be academically accurate at least.