Joshua Lappen

Thesis: Electrification, Politics, and Invisibility in the 20th Century American Southwest

Supervisor: Professor Pekka Hämäläinen

I specialise in electrification and energy history, with special attention to the politics of infrastructure and landscape. My doctoral thesis examines shifting cultural understandings of natural resources, landscape, and electricity in 20th century Southern California to understand how energy system development helped dictated regional politics, and visa versa.

My prior research on the electrification of greater Los Angeles, which was supported by a Marshall Scholarship, has won the RAI’s Carwardine Prize. I hold an MS in Atmosphere/Energy Engineering and a BA in Classics from Stanford University.

My historical research also suggests a range of new directions in present-day climate politics and policymaking. I use my historical work to inform research on energy utility competition, managing energy network shrinkage, and the political economy of energy transitions, in pursuit of rapid, just, and durable decarbonization.

I write regularly for both expert and general audiences in an effort to share my research and help uncover the obscured origins of today’s energy systems. Please do get in touch if you're considering studying History, or if you'd like to talk about my research.

Selected Writing:

"Review: 'The Extraction State: A History of Natural Gas in America.'" H-Net Environment, June 2021.https://networks.h-net.org/node/19397/reviews/7797742/lappen-blanchard-extraction-state-history-natural-gas-america

"A Policy History of Federal Coal Leasing: Past and Present Challenges," 19 Wyoming Law Review 151 (2019).
https://repository.uwyo.edu/wlr/vol19/iss1/3.

"The Climate Coalition Is Threatening to Split Apart." Heatmap, June 22, 2023.

"Hydrogen May Help Replace Fossil Fuels in California, but It's Still a Greenhouse Gas." CalMatters, March 23, 2023.

"Climate Alibis." The Drift, Fall 2022.

“San Francisco’s Misguided Climate Fight with PG&E.” San Francisco Chronicle, August 13, 2021.

“Exhuming California’s St. Francis Dam Disaster.” The Nation, May 17, 2021.

"How Climate-Driven Disasters Threaten Climate Progress." The Nation. October 19, 2020.