The thirteen chapters of this collection originate from a workshop held in 2004 at the German Historical Institute, then a major player in the development of environmental history, and edited by its then director together with one of the world’s foremost historians of climate, and for the past decade, a pioneer in the study of the history of disasters. The introduction is written by Christof Mauch, one chapter and the afterword by Christian Pfister. The volume covers a wide array of regions and approaches in a wide range of time.