This series will focus on the environmental history of the North Atlantic World between c.500-c.1900AD. The ‘North Atlantic World’ is here defined as incorporating Northern Europe; the Scandic countries; Britain and Ireland; the Faroe Islands; Iceland; Greenland, and the eastern seaboards of both Canada and the United States of America. It is envisaged that contributions to the series will be based upon inter-disciplinary research including (for example) archaeology; history; soil science, and palaeoecology.
Contributions to the series will attempt to set cultural and socio-economic developments within the wider environmental context. The series will address the following issues: climate-change across the period; the short- and long-term environmental impacts of the discovery and settlement of New Worlds; the intensification of resource exploitation in marine and terrestrial contexts; the discovery of new economic resources; intellectual developments relating to agriculture, nature, and ethnography; the impact of technological developments, increasing industrialisation and urbanisation; crises of supply in fuels, manpower and foodstuffs; epidemic/epizootic disease and health; ecological imperialism, and the emergence of the 'Improvement myth'.