Pervasive petrocultures: histories, ideas and practices of fossil fuels
This special issue focuses on the concept of petroculture and its relationship with energy history and energy humanities.
Transition
Petrocultures in the making: Oil in 1920s Scandinavian newspapers
Based on the assumption that the periodical press was crucial for synchronising the world and preparing for global energy transition in the early 20th C., the article proposes a historiography of oil that acknowledges newspapers’ excess capacity as research material and takes advantage of analyti
Creating the conditions for Western European petroculture: The Marshall Plan, the politics of the OEEC, and the transition from coal to oil
In the postwar years, petroleum products pervaded more and more aspects of Western European life.
Out of the reach of cattle? Animal subjectivities shaping the electrical cultures of British livestock farming in the second half of the 20th C.
This paper explores the use of electricity in 20th-century British farming, as captured in the agricultural press, advisory literature, films and specialist publications intended for the farming community.
Electricity, modernity and tradition during Irish rural electrification, 1940-1970
The arrival of widespread domestic electricity in rural Ireland was spread over two decades in the 1950s and 1960s, where the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) rolled out an electrical grid across the State.
Shifting Narratives of Electricity and Energy in Periods of Transition
This special issue aims at providing nuanced and multi-layered understandings of historical choices regarding, and perceptions of, electric supply and electrical technologies, by taking into consideration diverse groups, actors, agencies, and communities in distinct historical and regional settin
The Smoke of London (William M. Cavert, 2016)
William M. Cavert, The Smoke of London. Energy and Environment in the Early Modern City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
Relieving the housewife: Gender and the promise of geothermal district heating in Reykjavík, 1930s–1970s
Between 1939 and 1944, the City of Reykjavík in Iceland built a geothermal district heating utility that enabled the inhabitants to transition from coal to geothermal heating.
The uptake of new domestic energy technology in the 1950s-1960s: how women got involved in France and the Netherlands
Access to clean and affordable energy services and technologies is a global concern as stated in global conventions and goals. Different energy needs and interests are identified between men and women.
Powering Up Canada: A History of Power, Fuel, and Energy from 1600 (Ruth W. Sandwell, ed., 2016)
Ruth W. Sandwell (ed.), Powering Up Canada: A History of Power, Fuel, and Energy from 1600 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016).