The birth of a new journal for environmental history : introduction by the editorial board

This is the first volume of a brand new journal in the field of environmental history. Despite the huge importance of environmental topics in current societal discussions, international relations, politics and sciences, the number of academic journals dealing with the “interrelated” evolution of society and nature throughout history is still very limited. Over the past decades, environmental history has turned into an import historical subdiscipline, which operates in an interdisciplinary research context linking the humanities to the social and natural sciences and vice versa. On the one hand, the importance of nature and the physical environment cannot be underestimated when studying human history. On the other hand, the study of environmental challenges in the past can be of huge importance to our understanding of current environmental problems. Developing a long-term perspective shows that similar environmental challenges may have different outcomes depending on the social, economic or political context. This helps us to understand the roots of contemporary challenges and may even provide tools and instruments to enhance environmental coping mechanisms today