Overview

Using the ecosystem concept as his starting point, the author examines the complex relationship between premodern armed forces and their environment at three levels: landscapes, living beings, and diseases. The study focuses on Europe’s Meuse Region, well-known among historians of war as a battleground between France and Germany. By analyzing soldiers’ long-term interactions with nature, this book engages with current debates about the ecological impact of the military, and provides new impetus for contemporary armed forces to make greater effort to reduce their environmental footprint. This book is available as Open Access.

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9781641893985

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Reviews

This is an impressive interdisciplinary study, contributing to environmental history, the history of war and historical geography. The book advances an original and intriguing argument that armed forces have had a vested interest in preserving the environments and habitats in which they operate, and have thus contributed to environmental conservation long before this became a popular cause of wider humanity. The work will provide a template for how this topic can be researched for other parts of the world or for other time periods. - Peter H. Wilson, Chichele Professor of the History of War, University of Oxford

Several aspects of the book make it stand out. Its tight geographical focus allows meaningful analysis over an ambitious timeframe. It engages important debates in the history of warfare without losing ecosystems along the way. And it uses a wide range of sources, incorporating medieval materials as thoroughly as early modern ones. Each chapter provides thoughtful definitions of potentially amorphous terms, like region, ecology, soldier and biotic communities. -- Nicole Archambeau * Environment and History 29, no. 1: 159-60 * This is an impressive interdisciplinary study, contributing to environmental history, the history of war and historical geography. The book advances an original and intriguing argument that armed forces have had a vested interest in preserving the environments and habitats in which they operate, and have thus contributed to environmental conservation long before this became a popular cause of wider humanity. The work will provide a template for how this topic can be researched for other parts of the world or for other time periods. -- Peter H. Wilson, Chichele Professor of the History of War The interplay between warfare and the environment has received considerable attention from scholars of modern history. By contrast, there has been comparatively little scholarly discussion of the intersection of these two areas of historical inquiry in the medieval period. In this highly innovative study, Sander Govaerts, researcher in the department of history at Ghent University, seeks to address this lacuna through a longue durée investigation of a vast number of questions pertaining to the impact of armies on ecosystems as well as the influence of the natural environment on warfare in the Meuse river valley over a period of six centuries. -- David S. Bachrach * German History 41, no. 2: 297–98 * Gaat het om de invloed van landschappelijke condities op de ontwikkeling van militaire structuren? Of staat juist voorop hoe en op welke wijze bijzondere ecosystemen al dan niet bewust door legers en soldaten zijn gecreëerd en behouden? Aan het slot slaat Govaerts op beide trommels door de ontwikkelingen op zowel het ene als het andere terrein samen te vatten. Hierdoor zouden dan volgens hem de traditionele interpretaties over de relatie tussen legers en de hun omringende wereld zijn ‘uitgedaagd’ of ter discussie gesteld. Dit moet in brede zin worden opgevat, want historiografisch gesproken worden er geen kastelen belegerd en geslecht. Dat neemt echter niet weg dat de lezer aan het eind van dit boek veel wijzer geworden is over de besproken thema’s, ook in hun samenhang. [...] Het is een studie die overtuigend het belang van de longue durée-aanpak en brede inkadering in de geschiedenis van landschap en leefomgeving toont. Onderstreept mag worden dat de auteur zeer belezen blijkt, veel nieuwe bronnen heeft aangeboord en zijn lezer vlot door het verhaal trekt. Een aanrader dus, met als extra pluspunten dat het werk goed geïllustreerd is en voorzien van een handzaam naamregister. -- Hans Mol * Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 135, no. 4: 441-42 *

Author Information

Sander Govaerts is postdoctoral researcher at the Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University.

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