Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics
Physics and Politics in Revolutionary Russia (1991). https://www.ucpress.edu/books/physics-and-politics-in-revolutionary-russia/hardcover. The development of the Soviet physics enterprise, 1900-1940, under the impact of political revolution and revolution in science with the development of relativity theory and quantum mechanics.
Scientific Utopianism
New Atlantis Revisited: The Siberian City of Science (Princeton University Press, 1997). Shulman Prize of AAASS in 1998. Download at http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/facultybooks/1/. Based on extensive archival research, a history of the glorious Akademgorodok, the glorious Siberian city of science, 1957-1995.
BFTs (Brute Force Technologies) in Amazonia, Siberia, Forests, Rivers and Oceans
Industrialized Nature (Island Press, 2002). https://books.google.es/books?id=xsnNEQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false. The impact of the large-scale, productivist ethos on water, fish, forest and other resources – based on comparisons of the experience of Brazil, the US, Norway, Russia and Ukraine.
Fascism, Bolshevism, Authoritarianism and Science
Totalitarian Science and Technology (Humanity Books, 2005)., Download at http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/facultybooks/2/. How fascist, Nazi and communist, Bolshevik governments shaped – and interfered with – the biological, genetic, physics and engineering sciences.
Nuclear Energy
Red Atom (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005) at https://upittpress.org/books/9780822958819/. The peaceful atom in Soviet history, 1930-1991
Environmental Polities
Resources Under Regimes (Harvard University Press, 2005). https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674022430. To what extent does the form of a government and its economy–centrally planned or market, colonial or post-colonial–determines how politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, engineers, and industrialists address environmental concerns presented by the transformation of nature into a humanized landscape
Jet Skis, Snowmobiles, ATVs and Weedwackers
Motorized Obsession: Life, Liberty and the Small Bore Engine (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). Download at https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/facultybooks/3/. A technological, environmental and public health history of jet skis, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and gardening equipment. Among Choice Magazine’s selections of Outstanding Academic Titles for 2008.
Socialist Technological Utopianism
Would Trotsky Wear a Bluetooth? Technological Utopianism Under Socialism (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/10012/would-trotsky-wear-bluetooth?srsltid=AfmBOorRtJRbtll5fgLqGnPa6zAYZGDvUwLCVBdpvVgY3YwlaxWUObJ2. The fascinations – and failures – with technological panaceas under socialist Eastern Europe, North Korea and the USSR.
A Soviet Nobel Laureate (my friend, Zhores Alferov)
Lenin’s Laureate: Zhores Alferov’s Life in Communist Science (MIT Press, 2010). https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262014588/lenins-laureate/ . Based on interviews and access to his personal papers, this biography of a Soviet Nobel laureate, Zhores Alferov, tells the story of his life and work, and examines the bureaucratic, economic, and ideological obstacles to doing state-sponsored scientific research in the Soviet Union.
How the Soviets Always Destroyed the Environment
An Environmental History of Russia (with Ruben Mnatsakian, Aleg Cherp, Nikolai Dronin, Dmitry Efremenko, Vladislav Larin, and Oleg Yanitsky) (Cambridge University Press, 2013). https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/an-environmental-history-of-russia/A5CAF99C4A9623D48D32549C92F80D95 Nominated for 2015 Turku Book Award. The definitive environmental history of the USSR.
Arctic Conquest
The Conquest of the Russian Arctic (Harvard University Press, 2014). https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674728905. An in-depth, archivally-based political, cultural and environmental history of the Soviet Arctic region based on Soviet era archival research
Sports Bras! Fish Sticks! Get the Fruck Out of My Food!
Fish Sticks, Sports Bras, and Aluminum Cans: The Politics of Everyday Technologies (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015). https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/11453/fish-sticks-sports-bras-and-aluminum-cans?srsltid=AfmBOop9IXwhP8rYGYWzmsvdz3Ogx9BeCawjd11iTDU5T6kclTMDpNgU . The fascinating histories of everyday objects – including the sports bra and the fish stick. What wonderful field research!
Speed Bumps
Traffic (New York: Bloomsbury, 2017). https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/traffic-9781501329357/. A history of traffic, speed bumps and Verkehrsberuhigung (traffic calming). Literary Hub March 2017 book to read (http://lithub.com/14-books-to-read-this-march/). See also “Expressway to Your Heart,” April 6, 2017, at http://bloomsburyliterarystudies.typepad.com/continuum-literary-studie/2017/04/traffic.html
Chickens (Industrial)
Chicken: From Farm to Factory (Polity, 2020). https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=chicken-a-history-from-farmyard-to-factory–9781509525911. . The origins – and socio-environmental dangers – of industrial animal husbandry. What happens if you grow 20,000 chickens in an enclosed shed in six weeks? Lots of manure and high bird mortalities.
Russian Nuclear Adventurism
Nuclear Russia (Bloomsbury, 2022). https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/nuclear-russia-9781350272569/ . From nuclear physics research to the atomic bomb and to nuclear power – how Russia became a leading nuclear actor and is now attacking civilian reactor sites in Ukraine.
Big Technology in Soviet History – From Lenin to Putin
Hero Projects: The Russia Empire and Big Technology from Lenin to Putin (Oxford University Press, 2024). https://global.oup.com/academic/product/hero-projects-9780197698396?cc=es&lang=en&. The history of big technology in Russian history – and the environmental costs and political meanings of “hero projects”