Modelling climate and societal resilience in the Eastern Mediterranean in the last Millennium

This article analyses high-quality hydroclimate proxy records and spatial reconstructions from the Central and Eastern Mediterranean and compares them with two Earth System Model simulations (CCSM4, MPI-ESM-P) for the Crusader period in the Levant (1095–1290 CE), the Mamluk regime in Transjordan (1260–1516 CE) and the Ottoman crisis and Celâlî Rebellion(1580–1610 CE). During the three time intervals, environmental and climatic stress tested the resilience of complex societies.We find that the multidecadal precipitation and drought variations in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean cannot be explained by external forcings (solar variations, tropical volcanism); rather they were driven by internal climate dynamics. Our research emphasises the challenges, opportunities and limitations of linking proxy records, palaeoreconstructions and model simulations to better understand how climate can affect human history

Class dynamics of development: a methodological note

This article argues that class relations are constitutive of developmental processes and central to understanding inequality within and between countries. In doing so it illustrates and explains the diversity of the actually existing forms of class relations, and the ways in which they interplay with other social relations such as gender and ethnicity. This is part of a wider project to re- vitalise class analysis in the study of development problems and experiences

Demystifying Collapse: climate, environment, and social agency in pre-modern societies

Collapse is a term that has attracted much attention in social science literature in recent years, but there remain substantial areas of disagreement about how it should be understood in historical contexts. More specifically, the use of the term collapse often merely serves to dramatize long-past events, to push human actors into the background, and to mystify the past intellectually. At the same time, since human societies are complex systems, the alternative involves grasping the challenges that a holistic analysis presents, taking account of the many different levels and paces at which societies function, and developing appropriate methods that help to integrate science and history. Often neglected elements in considerations of collapse are the perceptions and beliefs of a historical society and how a given society deals with change; an important facet of this, almost entirely ignored in the discussion, is the understanding of time held by the individuals and social groups affected by change; and from this perspective ‘collapse’ depends very much on perception, including the perceptions of the modern commentator. With this in mind, this article challenges simplistic notions of ‘collapse’ in an effort to encourage a more nuanced understanding of the impact and process of both social and environmental change on past human societies

L’émergence d’une histoire environnementale interdisciplinaire. Une approche conjointe de l’Holocène tardif

L’histoire, en tant que discipline, traverse une phase de transition. D’une part, de nouveaux types d’indices (palynologiques, dendrologiques, glaciologiques, ostéo- logiques, archéogénétiques, etc.) sont disponibles, mais beaucoup d’historiens demeurent réticents à les utiliser, faute d’avoir été formés pour le faire. D’autre part, la situation mondiale actuelle, particulièrement critique, marquée par des changements climatiques et des perturbations écosystémiques sans précédent ainsi que par l’émergence (non sans lien avec ces dérèglements) de maladies hautement transmissibles, incite à se tourner vers le passé, à la recherche de parallèles signi- fiants et de boussoles susceptibles de nous guider. Des professionnels d’autres disciplines – notamment de la médecine, des sciences de l’environnement et de l’économie – se sont attelés à cette tâche en proposant au grand public des « leçons historiques ». Les historiens, quant à eux, participent encore trop peu souvent aux débats sur les défis du présent et le futur de la planète qui en découle, alors même que ceux-ci captivent l’opinion et contribuent effectivement à tracer les contours de notre avenir