Nation and Nature. Some problems of the agrarian historiography in the alpine area

Abstract

In a European perspective, the Alps form a region with an extraordinary density of national borders, and they belong to the few regions, which are defined on environmental criteria and, at the same time, politically sanctionned by an international treaty. These two issues – the state borders and thenatural environment – are in the centre of the following remarks on the developments of alpine agrarian historiography. One can use them to discuss problems and trends which could be of interest for other regions, too. How does the international exchange of methodological approaches and empirical knowledge work in the domain of agrarian historiography? And how do agrarian historians conceptualize the relationships of their subject matter to the environment?