Dear Colleagues,
As the impacts of climate change intensify globally, understanding how societies have historically responded to, adapted to, and been transformed by environmental stresses and climatic shifts is of critical importance. Contemporary challenges are not without precedent; the past offers a rich repository of human experience that can inform our present and future resilience strategies. A comparative, long-term perspective allows us to move beyond isolated case studies and identify patterns, pathways, and principles of societal adaptation and vulnerability across different temporal and geographical scales.
This special issue aims to explore the complex relationship between climate change and societal resilience through the integrated lenses of history and comparative analysis. It seeks to bring together rigorous research that examines how diverse societies, from the ancient to the modern era, have perceived, prepared for, and coped with climatic variability and environmental change. We are particularly interested in work that bridges disciplines and methodologies to draw actionable insights for contemporary policy and planning. Topics of interest include:
• Historical case studies of societal adaptation and collapse in the face of climatic shifts
• Comparative analysis of resilience and vulnerability across different cultures, political systems, and economic structures
• The role of indigenous and local knowledge in long-term environmental adaptation
• Climate impacts and societal responses in historical archives, paleoecology, and archaeological records
• The influence of institutions, governance, and social inequality on adaptive capacity over time
• Historical analogies and lessons for contemporary climate change adaptation and mitigation policies
• Methodological innovations in integrating historical data with modern climate models and resilience frameworks
• Comparative narratives and perceptions of climate risk and resilience across time and societies
We welcome original research articles, case studies, and reviews that contribute to advancing the dialogue and practice in this dynamic and evolving field.
Manuscript Submission Information
Authors should submit their manuscripts for the special issue by emailing them as an attachment to specialissue@hillpublish.com or by using the online submission system. The manuscript should be submitted by one of the authors, and submissions by anyone other than the authors will not be accepted. Additionally, the submitted manuscript should include a cover letter that specifies the special issue to which the manuscript is being submitted.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). The submitted papers should be properly formatted and written in fluent English. All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Guidelines page.