Perspectives on Public Policy in Societal-Environmental Crises: What the Future Needs from History (Risk, Systems and Decisions)

Acknowledgements
Contents
Introduction: What Sort of Past Does Our Future Need?
History and Public Policy in the Era of Planetary Crisis
What Stories Should Historians Be Telling at the Dawn of the Anthropocene?
	The First Answer: The Anthropocene as a Challenge to Humankind
	The Second Answer: The Anthropocene as a Viewpoint
	The Third Answer: The Anthropocene as Opportunity for the Research Community
	The Fourth Answer: History as Social Critique
	References
The Anthropocene Contract. What Kind of Historian–Reader Agreement Does Environmental Historiography Need?
	Introduction
	A Response by a Theory of History
	The Question of Readership
	Egalitarian Historiography
	Conclusion
	References
History and Utopian Thinking in the Era of the Anthropocene
	Introduction
	History and Criticism in the Era of the Anthropocene
	History and the Future in the Era of the Anthropocene
	Conclusions
	References
Potentials and Risks of Futurology: Lessons from Late Socialist Poland
	Planetary Crises, Historiography and the Futurology of the Past
	Future Research in Late Socialist Poland
	Epistemology: Meta-Prognostic Modelling of the Future
	Social Technology: Future Research as an Instrument of State Planning
	Sociological Imagination: Future Research as Contemporary Utopia
	Conclusion
	References
Globalization as Adaptive Complexity: Learning from Failure
	Introduction
	Looking to History
	Defining Collapse
	Identifying the Causes of Collapse
	Systemic Mechanisms of Collapse
	Tipping Points
	Feedback Loops
	Contagions
	Cascades
	Synchronous Failures
	Cycles
	Resilience and Mitigation
	Conclusion
	References
Disjunctures of Practice and the Problems of Collapse
	Introduction
		Historical Experiments: Primacy, Principle and Practice
		Theory as Tool: Complex Adaptive Systems
		Diversity, Flexibility and Durability: An Alternative Nomenclature with Alternative Implications
		Learning from Systems Under Stress: Antecedents and Anticipation
		What Relevance Can History Have if We Are Living in a No-Analog Age?
		What Deep Time Perspectives Can Offer to Contemporary Debates
		Possibilistic Reasoning, Counterfactuals and Scenario Modelling
		Policy Implications
		The Problems of Sustainability, Resilience, Transformation
	Conclusion
	References
Climate Change
Geoengineering and the Middle Ages: Lessons from Medieval Volcanic Eruptions for the Anthropocene
	Geoengineering and the Anthropocene
	Volcanic Cooling and Solar Radiation Management
	All Kinds of Uncertainties
	The Role of Medieval History: More Precision
	Dating Uncertainty and Historical Sources
	Clarifying the Conditions of a Possible Future: Let Frankenstein Sleep
	References
A Perfect Tsunami? El Nino, War and Resilience on Aceh, Sumatra
	Introduction
	Monsoons and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
	Earthquakes and Tsunamis
	Natural Disasters and War
	1873–1880: Scorched Earth and Population Displacement
	1880–1884 War, Resilience, and Recovery
	The Concentrated Line
	Measuring Resilience at the Systemic Scale Through GIS
	Sub-Systemic Resilience and Collapse: A Village View in Lamara
	The Village Was Entirely Abandoned in 1891
		Conclusion
	References
Social Responses to Climate Change in a Politically Decentralized Context: A Case Study from East African History
	Introduction: Collapse, Resilience, and the Centralized State in Historical Climatology
	500 BCE—900 CE: Resilience Through Interaction
	900 to 1400—“collapse” and Transformation
	Conclusion
	References
Resilience at the Edge: Strategies of Small-Scale Societies for Long-Term Sustainable Living in Dryland Environments
	Introduction
	Basin Wetlands
	Linear Valleys
	Conclusions
	References
Beyond Boom and Bust: Climate in the History of Medieval Steppe Empires (C. 550-1350 CE)
	Case Studies
	Concluding Remarks
	References
Lessons for Modern Environmental and Climate Policy from Iron Age South Central Africa
	Introduction
	Background
	An Introduction to Historical Linguistics
	Forgotten Strategies for Future Policy
	References
Crisis and Recovery
Systemic Risk and Resilience: The Bronze Age Collapse and Recovery
	Introduction
	Systemic Resilience and Risk in Societies
		Resilience
		Systemic Risk
		The Bronze Age
	System Interconnectivity: Economic, Political and Cultural
		Shocks and Interconnections
		Mapping the Systems Collapse
		Bronze Age Recovery
	Conclusions: Parallels to the Modern Globalised World System
	References
Panarchy and the Adaptive Cycle: A Case Study from Mycenaean Greece
	Introduction
	Brief Overview of the Bronze Age Collapse
	Resilience/Adaptive Cycle/Panarchy
	The Aegean Region as an Example of Panarchic Collapse
	Discussion/Conclusions
	References
Managing the Roman Empire for the Long Term: Risk Assessment and Management Policy in the Fifth to Seventh Centuries
	The Late Roman Empire: An Administrative Approach
	Landscape and Climatic Change in the Late Roman Empire: An Environmental Approach
	The Late Roman Empire in the East: A Systems Approach
	Conclusion
	References
Success and Failure in the Norse North Atlantic: Origins, Pathway Divergence, Extinction and Survival
	Introduction
	The Archaeological Science-Policy Interface
	Problems of Collapse Discourse
	How Are Archaeological Data Useful Now?
	Getting Beyond Collapse?
	Human Ecodynamics Perspectives in the North Atlantic and Beyond
	Qualitative Scenarios Storylines and Collaborative Conceptual Modelling
	Norse Greenland
	Lessons from the Past
	Scenarios and Counterfactuals
	Conclusion
	References
Resilience of Coupled Socio-Ecological Systems: Historic Rice Fields of the U.S. South
	Defining Resilience
	Resilience on Lowcountry Wetlands and in Lowcountry Rice Fields
	Resilience, Climate Change, and the 21st Century Rice Field Infrastructure
	Conclusion
	References
The Short- and Long-Term Effects of an Early Medieval Pandemic
	Introduction
	Setting the Scene: The Roman Empire and the Outbreak of Plague
	Short-Term Responses to the First Plague Outbreak in 542 C.E
		Public Reaction
		State Response in Constantinople
	Annual to Decadal-Scale Responses
		State Effects in the First Five Years: The 540s
		Effects on a Decadal Scale: Causality and Caution
	Conclusion
	References
Migration and the Environment
The Integration of Settlers into Existing Socio-Environmental Settings: Reclaiming the Greek Lands After the Late Medieval Crisis
	Introduction
	The Turkish Nomads in Thessaly
	The Albanians in the Peloponnese
	Conclusions
	Appendix
	References
Eastward Migration in European History: The Interplay of Economic and Environmental Opportunities
	References
The Environmental Dimension of Migration: The Case of Poland After World War II
	References
Conclusions
Concluding Remarks: Interdisciplinarity and Public Policy