Ronnie Ellenblum (Hebrew:רוני אלנבלום; born June 21, 1952,Haifa,Israel; died January 7, 2021,Jerusalem, Israel) was an Israeli professor at the department ofgeography at theHebrew University of Jerusalem,[1] and a member of theIsrael Academy of Sciences and Humanities,[2] specializing in Medieval geographies, the history of theLevant in theMiddle Ages, and the history of theCrusades. His latest studies deal also withenvironmental andclimatic history, thehistory of Jerusalem, and the development of historic cities in general.[3] Ellenblum headed theVadum Iacob Research Project[4] and was involved in the creation of several databases dealing with the history of Jerusalem (together withal-Quds University); with the maps of Jerusalem[5] and with English translations of documents and charters of the Crusader Period.[6] Ellenblum has developed a comprehensive theoretical approach to 'Fragility,' claiming that a decade or two of climatic disturbance (droughts, untimely rains and severely cold winters) could lead to severe societal effects, and that the amelioration and even stabilization of climatic conditions for several decades can lead to a period of affluence. His theory of Fragility is based on a thorough reading of a wealth of well-dated textual and archaeological evidence, pointing to periods of collapse (in the eastern Mediterranean and northern China during theMedieval Climate Anomaly),[7] and affluence in the entireMediterranean Basin during the Roman Optimum, and describing these processes yearly, monthly and even daily.
Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,Cambridge University Press, 1998[3]
Crusader castles and modern histories Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007[3]
Frankish Castles, Muslim Castles, and the Medieval Citadel of Jerusalem. InIn laudem Hierosolymitani: Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture in Honor of Benjamin Z. Kedar, edited byIris Shagrir, Ronnie Ellenblum and Jonathan Riley-Smith. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007[3][8]
The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950–1072, Cambridge University Press, 2012[3]
