Annotated Bibliography
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A Robinson. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review 91, no. 5 (December 1, 2001): 1369–1401. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.91.5.1369. Extremely elegant formulation correlating mortality rates of colonial settlers to the type of capitalism practiced there but some major assumptions might undermine the generalization.
Aiyer, Kartik. The Great Oxidation Event: How Cyanobacteria Changed Life. American Society for Microbiology. February 18, 2022. https://asm.org/articles/2022/february/the-great-oxidation-event-how-cyanobacteria-change. Accessed July 13, 2024. Good pop article on the Great Extinction Event.
Al-Khalili, Jim. “The Birth of the Electric Machines: A Commentary on Faraday (1832) ‘Experimental Researches in Electricity.’” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 373, no. 2039 (April 13, 2015): 20140208. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0208. Well laid-out historical narrative of the context and events leading to Faraday’s discoveries around electromagnetism.
AmericanXplorer13. Spectrumcolored2.svg. CC BY 3.0. December 9, 2010. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124520462. Accessed July 14, 2024. Image that shows relative frequencies of light.
Armelagos, George J. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: The Evolution of the Brain and the Determinants of Food Choice.” Journal of Anthropological Research 66, no. 2 (2010): 170–72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27820880. A specialists’ paper but interesting history entwining available agriculture and consequences for farmers.
Armenta, Adelina. Fossil Fuel Formation Complete. YouTube video, 2013, 9:09, March 27. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvH-h7TzSsE. Accessed July 14, 2024. Accessible student resource video shard by seminar leader that explains how fossil fuels are made.
Blankenship RE. 2010, October. Early evolution of photosynthesis. Plant Physiology. 154(2):434-8. doi: 10.1104/pp.110.161687. PMID: 20921158; PMCID: PMC2949000. Academic paper on the mechanisms and evolution of early photosynthesis.
Blankenship RE. 2021. Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis. Third ed. Appendix. pg. 271 Textbook on Photosynthesis with good general introduction and highly technical follow-up chapters. Seminar leader is mentioned in the thank you section.
Bodner Research Group. “Petroleum and Coal.” Petroleum and coal. Accessed July 29, 2024.https://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/1organic/coal.html. Basic information about the chemical properties of petroleum and coal.
Brain, Jessica. Timeline of the Industrial Revolution. Historic UK: The History and Heritage Guide. (February 28, 2019.): https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Timeline-Industrial-Revolution/. Accessed July 15, 2024. Readable timeline of the industrial revolution, helped put events in context.
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "energy." Encyclopedia Britannica, June 19, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/science/energy. Accessed July 14, 2024. Encyclopedia entry that is concise but dense.
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Joule heating." Encyclopedia Britannica, June 29, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/science/Joules-law. Accessed July 16, 2024. Encyclopedia entry that is concise but dense.
BYJUs. “Heat Capacity Formula - Definition, Formula and Solved Examples.” BYJUS, September 14, 2020. https://byjus.com/heat-capacity-formula/. Accessed July 29, 2024. Helpful study resource for heat capacity and its formula.
Cahill, Ben. Energy Access and Health Outcomes. Center for Strategic & International Studies. March 2021. https://www.csis.org/analysis/energy-access-and-health-outcomes. Accessed July 15, 2024. Readable summary article on how access to energy is variously connected to health outcomes around the world.
Chancel, Lucas, and Thomas Piketty. “Global Income Inequality, 1820–2020: The Persistence and Mutation of Extreme Inequality.” Journal of the European Economic Association 19, no. 6 (October 22, 2021): 3027. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvab047. Formal paper with extensive reference to historical data with claims about income inequality over time and its causes.
Chloe Glynn, personal photograph, “Classroom demonstration of hydroelectric generator,” May 20, 2022. A personal photograph from my classroom.
Comité International des Poids et Mesures (CIPM). Definitions of electric units, 1946. https://doi.org/10.59161/cipm1946res2e. Accessed July 11, 2024. Official records of how joules are defined in different contexts.
Conway, Ed, Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization. First American edition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023. The whole book sounds interesting, but I only referenced the chapter on gas for basic statistics of change.
Crosby, Alfred. 2006. Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity’s Unappeasable Appetite for Energy. New York: W. W. Norton. I did not read the whole book but wanted to quote his idea that fossil fuels are buried sunshine.
Davids, Karel. “The Transformation of an Old Industrial District: Firms, Family, and Mutuality in the Zaanstreek between 1840 and 1920.” Enterprise and Society 7, no. 3 (September 2006): 551. https://doi.org/10.1093/es/khl003. Surprisingly engaging article on very specific wind-powered industries outside Amsterdam in the late 16th, early 17th century and how those developments were interconnected.
De Decker, Kris. Wind Powered Factories: History and Future of Industrial Wind Mills. Low Tech Magazine. October 8, 2009. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/wind-powered-factories-history-and-future-of-industrial-windmills/. Accessed July 16, 2024. Very cute “solar powered” website with an engaging narrative of industrial developments in the Zaan district to modern days.
Dell, Melissa, and Benjamin A Olken. “The Development Effects of the Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System in Java.” The Review of Economic Studies 87, no. 1 (March 18, 2019): 164–203. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdz017. While the article itself may have had a very specific historical context that “not all colonialism” resulted in on-going poverty for local people, I do not like the idea that this exception could be used in arguments in support of modern colonial practices.
Domingues, F. Contente and Mitchell, Mairin. "Ferdinand Magellan." Encyclopedia Britannica, June 4, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ferdinand-Magellan. Accessed July 16, 2024. Encyclopedia entry on global sea travel needed for wind-power context.
Dreamer D, Weber AL. 2010. “Bioenergetics and life's origins.” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology. Feb;2(2):a004929. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a004929. Interesting paper connecting the idea that evolution would happen more quickly under conditioned of an adaptation allowing greater access to environmental energy.
Earth: The Operator’s Manual. Formation of Fossil Fuels. YouTube video, 2:25, April 9, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8VqWKZIPrM. Accessed July 12, 2024. Student accessible video explaining how fossil fuels are made and how they are different.
Energy Information Administration. Wind explained: history of wind power. EIA.gov. April 10, 2023. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/history-of-wind-power.php. Accessed July 16, 2024. Readable short summary of wind power highlights through history.
Energy Information Agency. Wind explained. EIA.gov. December 27, 2023. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/. Accessed July 15, 2024. Short readable article with diagrams about how wind is made due to differences in heat capacity between the land and the sea.
Farrington, Anthony. Trading places: the East India Company and Asia, 1600-1834. London: British Library, 2002. I did not read the whole book but an interesting transition from Dutch naval supremacy to British global dominance.
Federal Communication Commission. RF Safety FAQ: What Levels are Safe for Exposure to RF Energy., accessed July 16, 2024, https://www.fcc.gov/engineering-technology/electromagnetic-compatibility-division/radio-frequency-safety/faq/rf-safety#Q9. Accessed July 17, 2024. Somewhat complicated government website stating current acceptable exposure levels to radiofrequency waves.
Fensome, Robert, Graham Williams, Aïcha Achab, John Clague, and Brian J. Skinner. “Four Billion Years and Counting: Canada’s Geological Heritage.” Geoscience Canada 42, no. 4 (December 7, 2015): 485. https://doi.org/10.12789/geocanj.2015.42.082. I only referenced the basic concept that anaerobic transformation of saturated organics becomes peat, which is not common knowledge.
Giere, R., and X. Querol. “Solid Particulate Matter in the Atmosphere.” Elements 6, no. 4 (August 1, 2010): 215–22. https://doi.org/10.2113/gselements.6.4.215. Technical but concise professional magazine article about the health and environmental consequences of particulate matter and the differences in source and exposure.
Goren-Inbar, Naama, Nira Alperson, Mordechai E. Kislev, Orit Simchoni, Yoel Melamed, Adi Ben-Nun, and Ella Werker. “Evidence of Hominin Control of Fire at Gesher Benot Ya`aqov, Israel.” Science 304, no. 5671 (April 30, 2004): 725–27. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1095443. Readable but detailed article about early human control of fire and what plants were used as fuel and food sources.
Grand Rapids Community Media Center - www.grcmc.org. “Water Power.” History Grand Rapids, October 28, 2009. http://www.historygrandrapids.org/audio/2430/water-power. Accessed August 2, 2024. Short and pretty funny account from the local newspaper of the first hydroelectric power in the USA.
Greitzer, E. M., Z. S. Spakovszky, and I. A. Waitz. Entropy and Unavailable Energy (Lost Work by Another Name). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node49.html. Accessed July 14, 2024. Undergraduate study guide about thermodynamic definitions and equations.
Gross, Stephen G., and Needham, Andrew, eds. New Energies: A History of Energy Transitions in Europe and North America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, (2023): 14. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu/lib/upenn-ebooks/detail.action?docID=30406453 The introduction was a good summary of how historians and environmentalists are increasingly using energy as a lens for evaluating change, but the actual papers themselves felt incredibly shallow and glanced over the details I was hoping to use.
J. van den Hoek Oostende, “Het windgeld,” Amstelodamum 57, no. 5 (1970): 111–17 One of those papers that amazes an average person about how excruciatingly specific academic research can be, looking at why the Dutch term for an economic “bubble” uses the word wind instead.
Kaunda, Chiyembekezo S. “Energy Situation, Potential and Application Status of Small-Scale Hydropower Systems in Malawi.” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 26 (October 2013): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.05.034. This was the first paper I saw that I could use to reference the equation for head height as a factor in hydropower generation limits.
Klein, Naomi. One Way or Another Everything Changes. Democracy Now. September 17, 2014. https://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/17/thursday_naomi_klein_on_her_new_book. Accessed July 17, 2024. While increased access to energy is strongly correlated to increased economic opportunity, I wanted to direct readers to a resource that qualified “economic opportunity” as a codeword for exploitation and not necessarily a higher quality of life.
Lagler, Karl F. 1971. “Hydroelectric Power.” Power Generation and Environmental Change. Cambridge, editors David A. Berkowitz, and Arthur M. Squires. Mass: The MIT Press. https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=710639&site=ehost-live. An academic summary of different times and places that a hydropower project had devastating consequences for the environment.
Lakshman Guruswamy, "Energy Justice and Sustainable Development," Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 21, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 231-276. A somewhat outdated framework for examining how calls for increasing energy access need to be done in a way that is mindful of colonial history and exploitation.
Lindsay, and Dahlman, L. 2024, January 18. Climate Change: Global Temperature. Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global- temperature. Accessed July 10, 2024. A readable and informative summary article on the basis details and consequences of climate change as an artifact of fossil fuel combustion.
Miller, Ian Jared, Paul Warde, Ariane Tanner, J. R. McNeill, Victor Seow, Conevery Bolton Valencius, and Robert D. Lifset. “Forum: The Environmental History of Energy Transitions.” Environmental History 24, no. 3 (July 1, 2019): 463–533. https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emz006. Neat little interconnections of times that a change in energy use impacted other aspects of human and environmental functions.
Minnesota Municipal Power Agency. Swept Area [PDF]. 2024. https://www.mmpa.org/energy-education/teaching-tools-for-educators/. Accessed July 16, 2024. Reference website for how to calculate wind power.
Nave, Carl. HyperPhysics. Faraday’s Law. Georgia State University. (2017). http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/farlaw.html. Accessed July 28, 2024. Reference for the equation of Faraday’s Law on electric induction as a change in magnetic flux.
Nitschke, Wolfgang. “The Evolutionary Aspects of Bioenergetic Systems.” Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Bioenergetics 1827, no. 2 (February 2013): 61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbabio.2012.10.011. Academic article connecting the mutual entanglement of evolution and ability to extract energy from the environment.
Oxford English Dictionary. “trade wind” 2nd edition. 1989. https://www.oed.com/oedv2/00255721. Accessed July 17, 2024. Etymological connection between “trade” meaning path in Old English and its adaptation to “Trade Winds” coming to refer to the commercial purpose of travel.
Physics Education Research Group. Light and Energy. Kansas State University. https://perg.phys.ksu.edu/classes/conckirsten/moduleb/explorespectra/lightenergy.html. Accessed July 16, 2024.
Ramanathan, T.. "Watt steam engine." Encyclopedia Britannica, June 30, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/technology/Watt-steam-engine. Accessed July 29, 2024. Concise and thorough article on how the Watt steam engine was developed in a particular context.
Revisiting the past: IWP & DC takes a look at the story behind one of the first houses in the world to have its own power supply. International Water Power & Dam Construction, November 2003, 21. Gale Business: Insights. https://link-gale-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu/apps/doc/A111698015/GBIB?u=upenn_main&sid=bookmark-GBIB&xid=5d9edeef. Accessed August 2, 2024. Historical grounding for the world’s first hydroelectric power generator.
Sabater, Bartolomé. 2018. “Evolution and Function of the Chloroplast. Current Investigations and Perspectives.” International Journal of Molecular Sciences 19, no. 10: 3095. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19103095. Basic information about how the chloroplast functions to obtain energy from the environment and its evolutionary history of prokaryotic mutualism with “plants.”
Sharpe, Leon. “When Britain Ran Out of Coal.” America in Decline. Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. Accessed July 29, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Readable but academic connection between deforestation as an environmental change that led to adoption of coal as a new energy source and its consequent environmental changes.
Tanner, Ariane. “Thinking with Energy: Holism and the History of Energetics.” Environmental History 24, no. 3 (July 1, 2019): 469. https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emz006. Interesting article introducing energy as a lens in multiple disciplines and scales.
Taylor, Brian. The Rise and Fall of the Largest Corporation in History. Business Insider. November 6, 2013. https://www.businessinsider.com/rise-and-fall-of-united-east-india-2013-11. Accessed July 14, 2024. Fantastically readable and informative article about how the Dutch East India company operated and impacted finance forever.
Tennessee Valley Authority. “Hydraulic Head.” Wikimedia, December 31, 2004. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hydraulic_head.PNG. Image used to show the different parts of a hydroelectric power generator and its relationship to head height.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. “U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA – Independent Statistics and Analysis.” Coal and the environment - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), April 17, 2024. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/coal-and-the-environment.php. Accessed July 29, 2024. General updates on coal usage and its impacts.
Vygotsky, Lev. “Thought and Language.” MIT Press, 1962. https://doi.org/10.1037/11193-000. Supremely important and overall readable translation of one of the world’s foremost education theorists examining different contexts in which language and scientific thought are acquired through social engagement.
Walqui, Aída, and Leo Van Lier. Scaffolding the academic success of adolescent English language learners: A pedagogy of promise. San Francisco, CA: WestEd, 2010. An education theory text explaining misconceptions and remedies for teaching English Language Learners in a social context.
Waters, Colin N.. 2009 Carboniferous geology of Northern England. Journal Open University Geological Society, 30 (2). 5-16. A very cute specialist text explaining different geologic formations in the UK and deep history of how they came to be.
Wikimedia Commons contributors, "File:Van Gogh The Factory at Asnieres.jpg," Wikimedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Van_Gogh_The_Factory_at_Asnieres.jpg&oldid=749787282. Accessed July 29, 2024. Image of a Van Gogh oil painting that I saw at a museum in Philadelphia!
Yergin, Daniel. “The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power.” New York: Free Press (1991): 342. Pulitzer prize winning history of how oil shaped the 20th century. One of the most important books ever written for someone who wants to understand global power dynamics.
Comments: