A fascinating handbook providing a rare synthesis of the environmental history of northern Europe from the Paleolithic era to the present day.
Of interest to students and academics alike, this book provides a much-needed synthesis of the recent literature on northern Europe’s environmental history. Beginning with the Paleolithic period and the recolonization of Europe after the Ice Age, this book maps out the key environmental trends in the history of the region’s environment and its interaction with the human population.
The book also highlights how dramatic events outside Europe, such as the Tomboro volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815, had dramatic consequences for the region’s climate. Given the culturally diverse nature of modern Europe, a vital aspect of the book is its identification of the common themes that unite the interaction of the region’s nation-states with the natural environment. Part of ABC-CLIO’s Nature and Human Societies series, the book enables readers to better grasp the extent of humanity’s effect on our world.
Features
- A chronology covers key phenomena and events in the region's environmental history from the Paleolithic era to the present day
- Includes a bibliographic essay with contributions from leading environmental historians from North America and Europe
Tamara L. Whited, Ph.D., is associate professor of history and assistant chair of the History Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA. Her published works include Forests and Peasant Politics in Modern France.
Jens I. Engels, Ph.D., is assistant professor in the History Department at Freiburg University, Freiburg, Germany. He won the Gerhard-Ritter Award in 1999 for his doctoral thesis and is presently writing a detailed study of the transformation of the conservation and environmental protection movements in West Germany from 1950 to 1980.
Richard C. Hoffmann, Ph.D., is professor of history at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His published works include Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside: Agrarian Structures and Change in the Duchy of Wroclaw and Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art: Tracts on Fishing from the End of the Middle Ages.
Hilde Ibsen, Ph.D., is senior lecturer in environmental studies in the Department of Nature and Environment at Karlstads University, Karlstads, Sweden. Her published works include Visions of Equity: Development Cooperation in Norway, 1980–2000.
Wybren Verstegen, Ph.D., is lecturer in ecological and economic history at the Free University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Reviews
"I highly recommend this book and, on the strength of this book, this series, to the reader who wishes a short, readable, reliable introduction to regional environmental history."—Sixteenth Century Journal, July 1, 2007
