The Danish Revolution, 1500–1800
An Ecohistorical Interpretation

This book tells how Denmark created, and then overcame its sixteenth-century ecological crisis.

Thorkild Kjærgaard (Author), David Hohnen (Translated by)

9780521442671, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 November 1994

332 pages, 7 b/w illus. 11 maps 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.66 kg

"...a persuasive case for an ecological interpretation--a conclusion supported by an impressive body of primary evidence, as well as chronological logic." John D. Post, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

This book tells the story of a fertile European country that, as a result of over population and military armament, over exploited its fields and forests in a non-sustainable fashion. By the eighteenth century Denmark, along with other European countries, found itself in an ecological crisis involving clear felling of forests, sand drift, floods, inadequate soil fertilization and cattle disease. This crisis was overcome by a green biotechnological revolution that changed the whole pattern of agriculture, and by the abandonment of wood as a raw material and source of energy in favour of coal and iron. This book outlines the background of the present-day ecological crisis, both in the industrial world and in developing countries, and attempts to understand early modern Europe from a consistently ecological viewpoint.

List of illustrations
Preface
Introduction
Part I. Denmark, 1500–1750: A Country in an Ecological Crisis: 1. The road to the crisis
2. The anatomy of the crisis
Part II. The Ecological Revolution: 3. The green revolution
4. The energy and raw materials revolution
Part III. The New Denmark
5. Landscape
6. Labour burden and social structure
7. The disease pattern
8. Power
Part IV. The Driving Forces Behind the Danish Revolution, 1500–1800
9. Agrarian reforms
10. Technology and communications systems
Part V. The Inheritance: 11. The social and political inheritance: individualism and the liberal democratic society
12. The ecological inheritance
Appendices
Sources and bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]