The twenty-first century has witnessed a wave of severe infectious disease outbreaks, not
least the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a devastating impact on lives and livelihoods …

SUMMARY The Gram-negative bacterium Yersinia pestis is responsible for deadly plague, a
zoonotic disease established in stable foci in the Americas, Africa, and Eurasia. Its …

Will COVID-19 end the urban renaissance that many cities have experienced since the
1980s? This essay selectively reviews the copious literature that now exists on the long-term …

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic
inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global …

Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human
history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the …

This article provides an overview of recent literature on plagues and other lethal epidemics,
covering the period from late Antiquity to ca. 1800. We analyze the main environmental and …

Records of past societies confronted with natural climate change can illuminate social
responses to environmental stress and environment-disease connections, especially when …

Modern European genetic structure demonstrates strong correlations with geography, while
genetic analysis of prehistoric humans has indicated at least two major waves of immigration …

Abstract Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome, written for a popular audience, uses the
environment to explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The book asserts that …

The Balkans are considered the birthplace of mineral resource exploitation and
metalworking in Europe. However, since knowledge of the timing and extent of metallurgy in …