Shifting Narratives of Electricity and Energy in Periods of Transition

In contrast to Thomas Hughes’ classic systems theory published as Networks of Power exactly 40 years ago, the collective import of this volume’s assembled scholarship is to highlight the role of cultural contingency (vis-à-vis technological momentum) in the take-up of electricity. The…

This article historicizes electricity and energy abundance and their relation to the reconfiguration of political power in a context of (self-perceived) national decline. It analyses how electricity was used to generate a whole series of social narratives on national modernization and, most…

Through examinations of domestic servants in electrical advertisements and writings this article looks at the imaginations and realities of visions of an “Electrical Calcutta” at the turn of the twentieth century. It argues that the diverse conceptions of an “Electrical Calcutta” were intimately…

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. This energy transition was warmly welcomed by the women of rural Ireland, particularly for…

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. Through the lens of livestock management, the article addresses the ways in which non-…