The Green Ages

Introduction
1. Was Everyone Poor Before We Invented Capitalism?
1.1. The History of Progress: Modern Grand Narratives and their Pitfalls
1.2. Did Our Forebears Toil from Dawn till Dusk?
1.3. Europe in the High to Late Middle Ages: Some Dates and Figures
2. Sharing
2.1. Sharing Brings Riches: Convent Economy
2.2. Commons, and the Art of Internalising the External
2.3. Beguinages: Female Communities and Urban Gardening
3. Recycling
3.1. Maintenance Jobs and Second-Hand Markets
3.2. Paper: A Recycled Product Writes World History
3.3. Bricolage and Assemblage: Antiquity Repurposed for the Middle Ages
4. Microfinance
4.1. Microfinance Institutions in Italian Cities: The Monti di Pietà
4.2. Peer-to-Peer Lending in Medieval Towns
4.3. Agriculture on the Edge of Town: Medieval Rent-a-Cows
5. Philanthropy
5.1. Funding for Community Projects: Pont Saint-Bénézet in Avignon
5.2. Cultural and Social Sustainability: No Indulgences, No Michelangelo
5.3. Social Housing in Augsburg: The Fuggerei
6. Minimalism
6.1. Wealth is the Vomit of Fortune: Diogenes of Sinope
6.2. Money is Dung: St Francis of Assisi
6.3. Minimalism and Economic Theory: Pierre de Jean Olivi
7. What the Past Can Teach Us About the Future
7.1. What Would Our Ancestors Advise?
7.2. How to Escape the Prison of Inevitability
7.3. History: A Cure for Chronophobia

“With The Green Ages, [Kehnel] has written a book of great joy: an environmental history of many facets, which explains how some premodern practices of sustainability are applicable to the present day.” 

“This wonderfully original and eye-opening study will transform your attitude towards the medieval period. Through richly researched case histories, Kehnel shows how sustainability was central to the medieval approach to life and that they ‘knew the limits of our planet better than we do now.’”

“[A] wide-ranging and highly accessible polemic on medieval sustainability.” 

“A lively study that demonstrates that historically people have changed their way of life when called on. More narratives like this are needed.” 

“Energetically argued and traversing fresh lines of research traditionally ignored in histories of the time period, the book offers some sorely needed examples of historical sustainability for a self-complacent world content in careening towards ecological blight, and does so by borrowing light from the denizens of an age thought lost in darkness.”

“Many of the case studies Kehnel puts forward are attractively described, and it is refreshing to see such a positive argument about what can be learned from premodern ways of living.” 

“[Kehnel’s] book is a great success in reminding of us just how rich and varied the lives of our forebears were, and thus, as she points out, how varied those of our successors could be.”

“This book is a passionate, honest, and stimulating critique of the current metanarrative of progress, growth, and wealth, which the author argues arrived with the Industrial Revolution and resulted in short-term thinking and unsustainable lifestyles. . . . The scholarship is solid and carefully footnoted.”

“We don’t need or want to relive the past—but we do need to mine it for ideas and practices that can help solve some of the dilemmas of the present. This fascinating book does just that—and in the process represents the zenith of recycling!”

“Erudite and engaging, The Green Ages presents a powerful critique of the ideologies of the ‘modern age’ by historicizing their guiding image of the human as the self-interested Homo economicus. Excavating times when sharing, recycling, cooperation, and frugality were some of the reigning values in Europe, Kehnel makes a point crucial to any imagination of change: another world is possible. An important book for all students of sustainable futures.”

“Bold, imaginative, and vividly written, here finally is a historical survival guide in our climate crisis that reminds us that it is possible to live differently and sustainably.”

“A clarion call from the past to guide us through a troubled future. . . . Kehnel’s The Green Ages is a book written from the heart but with a head fully versed in medieval economic life and theory and as such it is a fervent cry to reconsider capitalism assumptions as to how the world should be run and to consider instead how to live more harmoniously and in partnership both with each other, with the seasons and the rhythm of the natural world. There is, Kehnel shows, much to learn from the past and if we want a sustainable future that is where we should first look.”

“The Green Ages takes the reader through a fascinating journey over several hundred years of history to prove beyond doubt that a different kind of world really is possible. The book shows that human beings are as capable of cooperation and mutualism as they are of competition and individualism—and that reconnecting with these basic human instincts is the key to our survival.”

“Bold and exciting—a must-read! Kehnel offers surprisingly practical examples and introduces remarkable individuals from the last two thousand years.” 

“Finally, a historically enlightening approach to the sustainability debate. A wonderful and much needed book.”

“A committed and thought-provoking book, rich in engaging examples and surprising alternatives, that makes it clear we need the past for our future.”