5:30 PM - 7:30 PM BST / 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM CEST
Etienne Benson (MPIWG Berlin)
Over the course of the twentieth century, various branches of the Earth sciences—including geology, meteorology, oceanography, and hydrology—adopted methods, models, and styles of work borrowed from physics. The rise of geophysical approaches in the Earth sciences coincided with what some historians call the Great Acceleration, a period when human impacts on planetary systems increased exponentially. These two developments were mutually reinforcing, with new forms of knowledge facilitating new forms of resource exploitation and vice versa. This lecture describes this process through the example of UNESCO’s International Hydrological Decade (1965–1974), with particular attention to the role of Cold War conflict and North–South tensions in shaping the agenda of hydrology as an Earth science in service of development on a planetary scale.
Etienne Benson is a historian of environmental movements and the environmental sciences. Since 2022, he has been a Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, where he leads the Department ‘Knowledge Systems and Collective Life’.
This lecture will take place as a hybrid event at the GHIL and online via Zoom. In order to attend this event, please register via Eventbrite to take part in person or online.