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Martin Schmid Announces Call for Papers

Environmental Legacies of European Wars - Session for 2013 ESEH

31.07.2012

Invitation for Proposals on Environmental Legacies of European Wars

Warfare and militarization have been constant but highly variable dimensions of humankind’s impact on the biosphere.  For the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) conference in Munich, in August 2013, we are organizing sessions on European wars, especially before the twentieth century, both within Europe and on its land and sea frontiers.  We welcome proposals on the environmental impacts of medieval siege and scorched earth warfare, through the “military revolution,” the 17th-18th centuries’ escalation by early modern states (including naval wars), to the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, and the industrialized wars of the 19th century.  We welcome proposals on individual wars or locations, or thematic discussions such as war/demography/disease or impacts on forests, agriculture, water regimes, and urban environments.

Proposals might pay particular attention to major conflagrations such as the Hundred Years War in France or the Thirty Years War in Central Europe.  Or they might address Europe’s frontier regions, such as eastward to the Urals and beyond, or conflicts with the Islamic world such as the confrontations with the Ottoman Empire.  Since methodological challenges are difficult for pre-modern times, especially regarding ecological consequences (both immediate and long-term), we welcome speculative approaches to the material.

Anyone interested in participating should contact Richard Tucker at rptucker(at)umich.edu or Martin Schmid at martin.schmid(at)aau.at, well before the deadline for session proposals, 15 October 2012.