Energy's History - by Daniela Russ & Thomas Turnbull

About the Book

"Energy history is an approach to understanding the past that takes changes in the human exploitation of Earth's energies as its object of inquiry. This interdisciplinary field documents and analyzes how humans thought about, harnessed, stored, and exploited stocks and flows of energy. In recent decades, in response to evidence of the effect of fossil fuel use in our climatic system and coinciding with an energy turn across the humanities, a new urgency and purpose has been ascribed to such work. Energy's History challenges abstract and universalizing conceptions of energy's history-making capacities. This collection contains twelve chapters that present, analyze, and contextualize a primary source. The contributors focus on ideas, events, and statements that recorded and critiqued the distinct historical paths of energy, thereby broadening the scope of where and what constitutes energy history. As energy's world-making has enmeshed ever more of the planet into a dangerous compact with fossil fuels, energy histories must be revised within this new energy-historical reality. This volume both presents persuasive visions of energy-driven development beyond the Western capitalist model and provides an expansive and critical account of the ways in which energy histories have shaped the past and impact the present"--

Book Synopsis

Energy history is an approach to understanding the past that takes changes in the human exploitation of Earth's energies as its object of inquiry. This interdisciplinary field documents and analyzes how humans have thought about, harnessed, stored, and exploited stocks and flows of energy. In recent decades, in response to evidence of the effect of fossil fuel use in our climatic system and coinciding with an energy turn across the humanities, a new urgency and purpose has been ascribed to such work. Energy's History challenges abstract and universalizing conceptions of energy's history-making capacities. Each of the twelve essays in this collection presents, analyzes, and contextualizes a primary source. The contributors focus on ideas, events, and statements that recorded and critiqued the distinct historical paths of energy, thereby broadening the scope of where and what constitutes energy history.

As energy's world-making has enmeshed ever more of the planet into a dangerous compact with fossil fuels, energy histories must be revised within this new energy-historical reality. This volume both presents persuasive visions of energy-driven development beyond the Western capitalist model and provides an expansive and critical account of the ways in which energy histories have shaped the past and impact the present.

Review Quotes

"In the shadow of the planetary emergency, a frantic effort is underway to understand the historical causes of environmental change. This scintillating primer rejects a one-size-fits-all explanation, takes seriously the multiple pathways of energy-rich societies, and insists on the crucial role of ideas and culture in the making of energy regimes. This book marks a major step towards a new planetary history." --Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, University of Chicago

"Methodologically innovative and eminently teachable, Energy's History highlights the most exciting research in the field. At a moment when climate pessimism abounds, it reminds us that our fossil-fueled world was not inevitable--a powerful lesson as we collectively envision what a more democratic and equitable energy system might look like." --Leah Aronowsky, Columbia University

"This path-breaking book documents and advances a radical break in the field of energy history. It moves us from a Eurocentric to a planetary-wide perspective on the ideas, events, and forms of defiance that have shaped the human use of energy. The new approach will shape contemporary debates about global justice in the face of climate crisis." --Timothy Mitchell, author of Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

About the Author

Daniela Russ is a historical sociologist at the University of Leipzig's Global and European Studies Institute. Thomas Turnbull is a historical geographer at the Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.