Between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean: Responses to Climate and Weather Conditions throughout History

Between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean brings together a set of case studies on living organisms’ adaptation to the evolution of the climate and adjustments to extreme weather conditions. Aiming to go beyond concerns about recent and forthcoming climate change, which have dominated research in environmental studies this book adopts a long-term perspective on adaptations and adjustments to nature. Although an important group of papers deal with the Portuguese territory and the Iberian Peninsula, in which a complex mosaic of Atlantic and Mediterranean climates helped to shape landscapes and history, the book has a broader geographical scope from England to Italy. Contributions look at the distribution and numbers of animal species and, material, social, cultural and religious responses to weather in the short term and to climate in the long term. The common ground is the reaction of living organisms to “natural hazards”. In the long term, these are cyclical, and nowadays predictable.