Realizing Consilience in Studies of Pre-Instrumental Climate and Pre-Laboratory Disease

A special issue of the journal Quaternary Science Reviews—entitled “Mediterranean Holocene Climate, Environment and Human Societies”—demonstrates why and how historians interested in premodern environmental history should work collaboratively across disciplinary boundaries to draw conclusions. A series of mini–case studies and a survey of recent scholarship, as prompted by this collection, explores the advantages and challenges of attempting to realize such consilience. Although the special issue focuses on Mediterranean Europe during the late antique–medieval periods, all historians interested in the complex relationship between climate and societal change will find that it yields deeper reflections and issues.