Call for journal articles
The Hungarian Historical Review invites submissions for its third issue in 2018, the theme of which will be “An environmental history of wars in Central Europe”
The deadline for the submission of abstracts: September 30, 2017 The deadline for the accepted papers: January 31, 2018
The environmental changes of the last millennium in East Central Europe have been studied for decades, and historians, archaeologists, and natural scientists have made substantial contributions to a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between the environment on the one hand and cultural and political history on the other. Historical processes can hardly be grasped in their complexity without some understanding of the changes that have taken place in the natural environment, and yet for the most part environmental history has remained a marginal topic or perspective in the study of the history of East Central Europe. Indeed, in many countries of the region it is still regarded as an auxiliary discipline of importance primarily simply because it adds an interdisciplinary angle to more traditional historical inquiries.
Environmental history does not have a single agenda. It is neither a turn nor a paradigm in historiography. There are many ways to write environmental history. For their part, archaeologists, geologists, geographers, biologists, palynologists, climatologists etc. have made important contributions, but their work and methodologies have not yet been organized systematically to produce a holistic picture precisely because of the absence of a synthetic historical approach. Furthermore, sometimes these scientists have neglected one another’s work, and some of the different disciplines continue to arrive at contradictory findings.
In Western European and U.S. scholarship, one of the problems which has drawn significant interest is environmental change brought about by military conflicts. The environmental legacy of wars has been intensely studied in the last two decades, in part in connection with the visible destruction and environmental impact of the two World Wars, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War. Dozens of major works have focused on the environmental transformation of landscapes in regions affected by war. However, most of these works addressed the problem of the environmental footprint of wars in modern times and, in particular, the twentieth century. Very few studies examined how military tactics in medieval or early modern times transformed the environment in various parts of Central Europe. The Hungarian Historical Review seeks contributions that will enrich our understanding of the environmental history of wars, broadly understood. The questions the articles should address may include but are not limited to:
- the impact of periods of war on landscape;
- changes in landscapes after wars;
- military industry and its impact on historical environments;
- landscapes of peace;
- the roles of weather and climate in military campaigns;
- the roles of landscapes in determining military tactics
The long-range goal is to summarize the related efforts in order to enhance communication among different fields of the sciences and foster exchanges among researchers of different nationalities. The short-term goal is to present a general, overall picture of our knowledge of environmental changes brought about by wars.
We invite the submission of abstracts on the questions and topics raised above.
Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words and a short biographical sketch with a selected list of the author’s five most important publications (we do not accept full CVs).
The editors will ask the authors of selected abstracts to submit their final articles (max. 10,000 words) no later than January 31, 2018. The articles will be published after a double blind peer-review process. We provide proofreading for contributors who are not native speakers of English.
All articles must conform to our submission guidelines: http://hunghist.org/index.php/for-authors
The deadline for the submission of abstracts: September 30, 2017.
Proposals should be submitted by email: hunghist@btk.mta.hu
The Hungarian Historical Review is a peer-reviewed international quarterly of the social sciences and humanities the geographical focus of which is Hungary and East-Central Europe. For additional information, including submission guidelines, please visit the journal’s website: www.hunghist.org