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Environment and Society in Byzantium, 650-1150

Between the Oak and the Olive

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Alexander Olson

    1. Independent scholar, Burnaby, Canada

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  • Illuminates Byzantines' relationship with woodland between the seventh and twelfth centuries
  • Explores shifting economic strategies, environmental change, and the transformation of material culture throughout the middle Byzantine period
  • Argues that Byzantines' relationship with their ecology was far from static, and that Byzantines' decisions had environmental impacts

Part of the book series: New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture (NABHC)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Alexander Olson
    Pages 1-23

  3. Middle Byzantium’s Environmental and Economic Antecedents

    • Alexander Olson
    Pages 25-47

  4. An Evergreen Empire

    • Alexander Olson
    Pages 49-94

  5. The Decline of the Olive in Middle Byzantium

    • Alexander Olson
    Pages 95-135

  6. Rearranging Woods and Scrub

    • Alexander Olson
    Pages 137-176

  7. The Return of the Olive

    • Alexander Olson
    Pages 177-211

  8. The Devil Chops Wood

    • Alexander Olson
    Pages 213-232

  9. Conclusion

    • Alexander Olson
    Pages 233-238

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 239-258
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Keywords

About this book

This book illuminates Byzantines' relationship with woodland between the seventh and twelfth centuries. Using the oak and the olive as objects of study, this work explores shifting economic strategies, environmental change, and the transformation of material culture throughout the middle Byzantine period. Drawing from texts, environmental data, and archaeological surveys, this book demonstrates that woodland's makeup was altered after Byzantium's seventh-century metamorphosis, and that people interacted in new ways with this re-worked ecology. Oak obtained prominence after late antiquity, illustrating the shift from that earlier era's intensive agriculture to a more sylvan middle Byzantine economy. Meanwhile, the olive faded into the background, re-emerging in the eleventh and twelfth centuries thanks to the initiative of people adapting yet again to newly changed political and economic circumstances. This book therefore shows that Byzantines' relationship with their ecology was far from static, and that Byzantines' decisions had environmental impacts.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Independent scholar, Burnaby, Canada

    Alexander Olson

About the author

Alexander Olson received a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, USA where he studied Byzantine and environmental history. He now enjoys working as a bureaucrat.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Environment and Society in Byzantium, 650-1150

  • Book Subtitle: Between the Oak and the Olive

  • Authors: Alexander Olson

  • Series Title: New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59936-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-59935-5Published: 17 November 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-59938-6Published: 17 November 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-59936-2Published: 16 November 2020

  • Series ISSN: 2730-9363

  • Series E-ISSN: 2730-9371

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 258

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: History of Medieval Europe, Social History, Environment Studies

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