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General Introduction: Weather, Climate, and Human History

  • Christian Pfister
  • Sam White
  • Franz Mauelshagen
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Abstract

This chapter introduces the field of climate history, the study of past climates and weather, and their role in human history. Climate history builds on the insights of paleoclimatology (the reconstruction of past climates from the archives of nature) and historical climatology (the reconstruction of past climates and weather from the archives of societies), as well as the methods of conventional history. European climate history emerged as a distinct field of study during the mid-twentieth century and has since developed into a more expansive, global field of study. The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History presents the state of the field with respect to climate history methods, regional results, themes, case studies, and the history of climate science.

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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Christian Pfister
    • 1
  • Sam White
    • 2
  • Franz Mauelshagen
    • 3
  1. 1.Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate ChangeBernSwitzerland
  2. 2.Department of HistoryOhio State UniversityColumbusUSA
  3. 3.Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, University of PotsdamPotsdamGermany

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