This book challenges previous notions of early modern dissertations as unimaginative academic exercises. It argues for their continuous importance in the scholarly and scientific discourse, and describes the richness and diversity of their subjects and themes. The book contains a complete catalogue of the almost twenty thousand Swedish dissertations defended in Uppsala, Lund and Abo between 1600 and 1820. The catalogue includes longer comments about and descriptions of a few thousand of these dissertations, and also provides an analysis of how different subjects have evolved over time.