princeton.edu
CCHRI - Climate Change & History Research Initiative
Logistics
Date: 3–5 June
Location: Princeton, NJ, USA
Venue: 211 Dickinson Hall, Princeton University
Description
This interdisciplinary project investigates the impact of climatic changes across the last two millennia on societies in two environmentally sensitive areas:
- The eastern Mediterranean basin (including the Balkans, Anatolia and the Near and Middle East).
- The eastern Eurasian steppe, in particular Mongolia and the regions north of China.
Aims
The main foci of the project are (1) the differential impacts of climate and environmental change on complex societies and state formation and (2) the impact of human society and polities on the environment.
Two keywords embody the principles upon which the project is founded: consilience and resilience. The former reflects current efforts to integrate natural scientific with social scientific research techniques, methodologies and philosophies in a common effort; the latter reflects the leitmotif of the project, which is to investigate the ways in which climate and environmental stress has impacted on social, economic, political and cultural systems and to illustrate of the outcomes of these impacts. While we problematize both concepts, the aims are thus:
To expand the understanding of societal transformation and environmental evolution through a detailed historical analysis of the regions in question.
To generate new methodologies and research questions by integrating social and natural science approaches.
Through the development of this integrated and approach, the project generates a model of historical-evolutionary change. As noted already, the keyword is socio-cultural resilience, an understanding of the mechanisms underlying which is essential for insight into contemporary environmental change and the possibilities for future planning and policy.
Further information
Please visit the website for more information: https://climatechangeandhistory.princeton.edu/