An environmental history of medieval Europe
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
An environmental history of medieval Europe
(Cambridge medieval textbooks)
Cambridge University Press, 2014
- : pbk
- : hardback
Available at 17 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [378]-390
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
How did medieval Europeans use and change their environments, think about the natural world, and try to handle the natural forces affecting their lives? This groundbreaking environmental history examines medieval relationships with the natural world from the perspective of social ecology, viewing human society as a hybrid of the cultural and the natural. Richard Hoffmann's interdisciplinary approach sheds important light on such central topics in medieval history as the decline of Rome, religious doctrine, urbanization and technology, as well as key environmental themes, among them energy use, sustainability, disease and climate change. Revealing the role of natural forces in events previously seen as purely human, the book explores issues including the treatment of animals, the 'tragedy of the commons', agricultural clearances and agrarian economies. By introducing medieval history in the context of social ecology, it brings the natural world into historiography as an agent and object of history itself.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: thinking about medieval Europeans in their natural world
- 1. Long no wilderness
- 2. Intersecting instabilities: culture and nature at medieval beginnings (c.400-900)
- 3. Humankind and God's creation in medieval minds
- 4. Medieval land use and the formation of traditional European landscapes
- 5. Medieval use, management, and sustainability of local ecosystems 1: primary biological production sectors
- 6. Medieval use, management, and sustainability of local ecosystems 2: interactions with the non-living environment
- 7. 'This belongs to me ...'
- 8. Suffering the uncomprehended: disease as a natural agent
- 9. An inconstant planet, seen and unseen, under foot and overhead
- 10. A slow end of medieval environmental relations
- Afterword.
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