Session Abstract

Richard Hoffmann is one of the leading voices in medieval environmental history, a field that has risen to prominence in the last decade, particularly through Hoffmann’s tireless efforts to promote the field and its practitioners. This session, celebrating and introducing his opus, An Environmental History of Medieval Europe forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, has three environmental historians responding to the ideas, issues, and challenges raised by this book, and pointing to new research avenues and directions that it encourages. The book will be released in the Spring of this year, making the 2015 AHA an appropriate time to use this book as a way to both highlight the growing vigor of medieval environmental history and show the many connections that medieval history can have to the concerns of modern disciplines within history.