Reddit mentions of The Battle That Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire

It's a quite broad question. From my (Swedish-oriented) perspective, it spans the entire recorded history of the countries - and then some. Just to give a short summary (which amounts to a long post): The Vikings/Varangians had extensive travel and trade with Novgorod (Holmgård), the Rus' who came to rule there likely originated in Sweden.

From around a century after the end of the Viking age (mid-12th cent) to the end of the Middle Ages (1500), there were well over a dozen wars (or at least campaigns) between Sweden and Russia's progenitor state Novgorod over Finland and particularly the innermost part of the Gulf of Finland, Karelia and Ladoga. (Traditional Swedish and Finnish historiography held that Finland was conquered in 1150, although that 'crusade' may well never have happened) Although 'Finland' for most intents here didn't stretch much farther inland than Hämeenlinna. But the real Baltic power of the era was the Hanseatic League.

In the late 1400s and early 1500s, both Sweden and Russia gain power as the Hansa diminishes, and consolidate under fairly autocratic rulers (Gustav Vasa and Ivan IV), and you basically have the modern versions of both states (or at least prior to the USSR). Soon enough these two get into the Russo-Swedish war of 1554, followed by the Livonian War.

The period from the late 16th century until 1809 could, for Sweden's part, be largely summarized as conquering the entire Baltic coast - Dominium maris Baltici. Primarily waging war against Denmark and Russia, who of course had a goal in stopping Sweden's efforts.

During the Time of Troubles (1598-1613) when Russia was without an heir to the throne, there was a lot of triangulation between Russia, Sweden and Poland. Sweden attacked (the de la Gardie campaign) in an attempt to prop up their supported candidate to the throne, Vasili IV - in exchange for perpetual recognition of the Swedish claim to Kexholm/Käkisalmi (north Ladoga). Poland, in turn succeeded at getting their candidate - Władysław IV Vasa briefly onto the Russian throne. He was Gustav's great-grandson and pretender to the Swedish throne (although without much hope of claiming it, not least because of the Catholic-Protestant schism). The Romanovs ended up winning the throne in 1613, although the Swedish efforts hadn't stopped then - and you had the Ingrian War ending in 1617, which put Ingria under Swedish control (denying the Russians), and the start of the 'Swedish Empire'. (referred to a bit more humbly in Swedish as the 'era of great power')

You had the Thirty Years War starting in 1618, where Sweden, lead by Gustavus Adolphus successfully capitalized on the continental wars. To make a long (and well-documented) story short, Sweden ended up with great territorial gains and was at the zenith of its power after that. Besides present-day Finland and the area around the Gulf of Finland, it held Estonia, parts of Latvia (including Riga) as well as Pomerania and some other bits of North Germany.

Russia, having lost its access to the Baltic in 1617, took advantage of the weakness of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in order to gain access (as well as other factors like controlling Ukraine). Which quickly lead to Sweden mounting a large-scale invasion as well (The 'Swedish Deluge') - in part to deal with those throne-pretenders. Russia then tried to take advantage of Sweden's armies being tied up in Poland, and you had the Russo-Swedish War of 1656, which didn't result in any territorial changes. The late 17th century saw Russia put the Polish-Lithuanian under her control, while Sweden fought several wars against Denmark for Scania and several other provinces.

Which leads to 1700 and the outbreak of the Great Northern War - 'everyone' against Sweden, more or less. That was the beginning of the end of the Empire. Although Sweden had some initial successes, the great blow was Charles XII's failed invasion, often compared to Napoleon and Hitler's later invasions, and just as unsuccessful. Peter the Great succeeded in reclaiming Livonia, Ingria and the innermost part of the Gulf of Finland. Before the war had ended, he'd started construction of a fort and city there to keep the Swedes out forever - Saint Petersburg.

After the war (and concurrent famines), it took almost a generation before Sweden made an attempt to reclaim the territories it'd lost in the Great Northern War. The first attempt was 1741, which only lead to more losses. Gustav III seized power from parliament (1772) and made himself an 'enlightened' absolute monarch. After trying to convince Catherine the Great (his cousin) to allow him to take Norway from Russia's ally Denmark, he went to war against Russia in 1788 in another attempt, to no avail.

When the Napoleonic wars came around, Sweden wasn't about to stay out if it then, either. But they picked the wrong side, allying with Prussia and Britain - which prior to the Battle of Jena, looked like they had a good chance of bringing down Napoleon. Having defeated Prussia, France had no problems occupying Pomerania. Which was returned to Sweden on condition that they stop trade with Britain. Which Sweden agreed to, but didn't actually do. So in the Treaties of Tilsit, Napoleon got Russia to attack and force Sweden into the Continental Blockade. Sweden did have a plan for defending Finland, although it failed - in no small part because Denmark was also threatening an invasion in the south to reclaim Scania.

Then you had 1812 and Sweden jumped into the Sixth Coalition, now allied with Russia, and ultimately managed to swap Pomerania for Norway as a consolation prize of sorts. It was after all a union where Norway had far-reaching autonomy, although still quite unpopular with the Norwegians. Militarily it did make sense, being easier to defend a peninsula, but the loss of Finland was a huge psychological shock to Sweden. People were outraged; the king was forced to abdicate and go into exile, and the absolute monarchy that Gustav III was abolished, restoring power to parliament and giving Sweden what's counted as its first democratic constitution. And of course, Sweden has not fought a war in the 200 years since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. So perhaps it's for the best - not least for Finnish-Swedish relations.

Aside from a general-history book, I can't really name ones that'd cover the whole gamut of Russo-Swedish relations, except for general-Swedish-history. There are many books on Charles XII and the Great Northern War in particular, from Voltaire, to Hatton, to Englund. That's certainly the most well-documented one, apart from works on the Thirty Years War and Gustavus. I can't come up with many good books on the Finnish War in particular that exist in translation (there's a whole bibliography here, though)

There's a very famous fictional work about it, though: The Tales of Ensign Stål by Runeberg - perhaps the only book considered a classic of both Finnish and Swedish literature.

TL;DR: Russia and Denmark are the only countries you'd refer to in Swedish as an arvsfiende (hereditary enemy).

http://www.amazon.com/Battle-That-Shook-Europe-Poltava/dp/1860648479/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1301203615&sr=8-2

Highly recommended.