Book Presentation
Annette Kehnel: "The Green Ages”

"we can live sustainably—we’ve done it before! "

Wed, 12/18/2024
6:30 PM Goethe-Institut Boston

In The Green Ages, historian Annette Kehnel explores sustainability initiatives from the Middle Ages, highlighting communities that operated a barter trade system on the Monte Subiaco in Italy, sustainable fishing at Lake Constance, common lands in the United Kingdom, transient grazing among Alpine shepherds in the south of France, and bridges built by crowdfunding in Avignon. Kehnel takes these medieval examples and applies their practical lessons to the modern world to prove that we can live sustainably—we’ve done it before!
 
From the garden economy in the mythical-sounding City of Ladies to early microcredit banks, Kehnel uncovers a world at odds with our understanding of the typical medieval existence. Premodern history is full of inspiring examples and concepts ripe for rediscovery, and we urgently need them as today’s challenges—finite resources, the twilight of consumerism, and growing inequality—threaten what we have come to think of as a modern way of living sustainably. This is a stimulating and revelatory look at a past that has the power to change our future.

Professor Annette Kehnel studied History and Biology at the University of Freiburg, Somerville College, Oxford, and LMU in Munich. She received her doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin for her research on Irish convent communities and taught at the TU Dresden, where she received her post-doctorate in 2004. Since 2005 she has held a chair in Medieval History at the University of Mannheim. She has published numerous works on her main topics of research: cultural and economic history and historical anthropology.