Bridging History and Policy
Description
This open access volume addresses questions of scale, complexity, systems-modeling, information-sharing and challenges of policy relevance with the aim of moving our fields forward in better mobilizing our results for actionable use. Compiled from papers presented at two colloquia held in 2023 and 2024 at the Max-Planck Institute for Geoanthropology and at Princeton University, the work promotes interdisciplinary approaches to addressing modern-day societal challenges by bridging the domains of history, systems modelling, and policymaking.
It integrates the insights of historians, archaeologists, complex systems modelers and sustainability experts, and aims to generate actionable knowledge to inform policies targeting pressing modern-day problems such as climate change, regional and global conflicts, mass migrations, and resource scarcity. Given that experimenting with large social-environmental systems is impractical and ethically contentious, historical records provide important observational data for studying the dynamics of complex systems over time. History reveals patterns of resilience and collapse in response to past challenges and offers lessons that can inform contemporary strategies. The contributors discuss the types of historical expertise and data required to enhance systems modelling and applications to policymaking. A core theme of this book is the use of complex systems theory and historical data to understand better the intricate interplay between climatic, social, political, economic, and technological systems. The contributors explore theoretical and methodological aspects essential for formulating effective policies to promote sustainable development, reduce socio-economic inequalities, and prevent systemic collapses.
This interdisciplinary exploration includes cutting-edge techniques in systems modelling, highlighting the burgeoning role of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Another significant aspect of the book is its focus on the design of collaborative research platforms. These platforms are essential for fostering interdisciplinary cooperation and ensuring that the insights gained from complex systems modelling and historical analysis effectively inform policy-making. By facilitating collaborative efforts among diverse experts, the book aims to create a foundation for more robust, evidence-based policies to address better the multifaceted challenges facing today's society. This volume is an invaluable resource for policymakers, modellers, and researchers involved in the study of the past who are interested in leveraging interdisciplinary approaches to tackle modern-day challenges.
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Persons
John Haldon is a fellow of the British Academy and Director of the Climate Change and History Research Initiative at Princeton University. His research focuses on the history of the medieval eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire, on premodern state systems and structures in western Eurasia, and on the impact of environmental stress on societal resilience in pre-modern social systems, on all of which he has published extensively.
Ricardo Fernandes investigates past societies through the lens of complex systems theory, with the aim of generating actionable insights for contemporary policymaking. He holds a joint appointment at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology (formerly the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) and the University of Warsaw. Prior to the closure of the Department of Archaeology at MPI-GEA, he led the Systems Archaeology research group and the Radiocarbon, Biochemistry, and Computational laboratories.
Content
Part 1: Making history relevant.- Chapter 1. Introduction: Can we translate history into policy? Problems and perspectives (Haldon).- Chapter 2. Why and how can insights from history help to advance human development? (Conceição).- Chapter 3. What archaeologists talk about when they talk about climate change (Crabtree).- Chapter 4. Using climate's past: an analysis of history of climate and society studies in the fight against global warming (Degroot and Singer, Gauthier, and Klassen).- Chapter 5. Bridging history and policymaking via systems thinking (Fernandes).- Chapter 6. Pitfalls in learning from the past: Analogies, presentism and ethics (Mordechai).- Chapter 7. Agent-based modelling of possible pasts and futures: Possibilities and limitations (Steudle, Vogl, Kaye and Wolf).- Part 2: Policy, politics and the past.- Chapter 8. The creative complications and challenges of UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES transdisciplinary research method: Experiencing dreaming as an approach - my story (Luci Attala).- Chapter 9. Historical landscapes, conservation and community: Lowcountry wetlands and rice cultivation in South Carolina (Folk).- Chapter 10. Shifting Baseline Syndrome: a framework for historical data integration in marine resource management (Hambrecht).- Chapter 11. Systems of a Down: A New Way to Define and Understand Societal Collapse (Kemp).- Chapter 12. Institutional resistance and functional failure: Challenges of implementing policy change (Murphy).- Chapter 13. Bridges between Academe and the public sector: reflections on a career and initiatives of the National Library of Medicine (Reznick).- Chapter 14. The resilience of cities: from the present to the past and back again (Smith).- Chapter 15. Policy-relevant environmental history in an era of environmental solutionism: Problems and prospects (Snow).- Part 3: Case studies.- Chapter 16. Visualizing risk, remembering disaster, creating resilience: Medieval hydrological extremes and what they can teach the 21st century (Bauch).- Chapter 17. Climate-sensitive infectious diseases, an ancient problem with present-day public health importance (Charnley).- Chapter 18. History as a barrier to climate change adaptation and conservation at the World Heritage Site, Tipasa, Algeria (Clarke).- Chapter 19. Impactful engagement of scientific organisations in parliamentary policy-making: the European Geoscience Union Biodiversity Task Force of 2022-2024 (Hill and Izdebski).- Chapter 20. Information flow, legacies of learning and climate change adaptation in Norse Greenland (Jackson and Dugmore).- Chapter 21. Provisioning a preindustrial city: Communal organization of labor, water management, and the intensification of agriculture in the Greater Angkor region, 9th-15th centuries CE (Klassen).- Chapter 22. What price success? Environmental and human costs of South Indian agrarian histories (Morrison).- Chapter 23. Resilience and vulnerability of Tokugawa Japan to climate changes (Nakatsuka).- Chapter 24. Heritage of fire in the American Southwest: Ancient landscape management, traditional ecological knowledge, and contemporary challenges (Rosen, Damick and Krause).- Chapter 25. Planetary health and ONE paleopathology: Climate adaptation, risk, and resilience in the Holocene (Schug and Buikstra).