History Speaking: Penn, Fossil Fuel, & The History of the Future

Jared Farmer studies the histories of built and unbuilt environments from the hyperlocal to the planetary. His temporal expertise is the long nineteenth century; his regional expertise is the North American West. At Penn, Prof. Farmer is affiliated with the History and Sociology of Science Graduate Group; the Religious Studies Graduate Group; the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities; and the Initiative in the History of the Built Environment at the Weitzman School of Design.

Farmer’s book On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape (Harvard University Press, 2008) won the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. His latest book is Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees (Basic Books, 2022). His next book project is “God View: How Seeing the Earth Transformed the World.”