Università Roma Tre

The course will focus on the political history of energy and on the environmental consequences of the emergence of different energy regimes from the beginning of the 20th century to the present time.
We will explore the passage from the age of coal, to the age of hydrocarbons, to the most recent trends towards alternative energy sources and "peak demand" for oil. This will be done by analysing great power politics, the expansion of Fordism and consumerism, the role of multinational oil companies, the pressures for decolonization and the emergence of the environmentalist debate from the 1970s.
Questions and concepts such as “resource curse”, “conservationism”, “Dutch disease”, “limits of growth”, "peak oil", "sustainable development", will be discussed and informed by relevant literature (and possibly archival material), images and documentaries.

REQUIRED:

• Leonardo Maugeri, "The Age of Oil: The Mythology, History, and Future of the World's Most Controversial Resources" (the complete book)
• John McNeill, "Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the 20th Century" (Chapters: 9,10,11,12)

ONE OF THE FOLLOWING (or another previously agreed with the instructor):
• Amitav Ghosh, "The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable"
• Bernard Mommer, "Global Oil and the Nation State"
• John McNeill and Peter Engelke, "The Great Acceleration. An Environmental History of the Anthropocene Since 1945"
• Meg Jacobs, "Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s"
• Myrna Santiago, "The Ecology of Oil. Environment, Labour and the Mexican Revolution, 1900-1938"
• Naomi Klein, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate"
• Timothy Mitchell, "Carbon Democracy. Political Power in the Age of Oil"
• Tyler Volk, "CO2 Raising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge"

AN OPTIONAL SOURCE to help for your presentations and for the essay:
• Luigi Piccioni, "La cronologia di "altronovecento" dell'ambiente e dell'ambientalismo 1853-2000"