Brian Black writes and speaks widely for public and academic audiences about the intersection of issues of the environment and history.  After growing up in Central Pennsylvania, Black worked in publishing in New York and Kansas, including stints at Audubon, MHQ, Scholastic, and the Journal of Economic History.  His graduate study took place at the New York University and the University of Kansas.  He taught at Gettysburg and Skidmore Colleges before coming to Penn State Altoona in 2001 to help start and lead Penn State's only interdisciplinary program in Environmental Studies. Currently. Black is Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and History and serves as Penn State Altoona's Head of the Division of Arts and Humanities

 

Specializing in Energy Studies

His primary focus is energy, past and present, and particularly petroleum.  Emphasizing cultural drivers behind energy consumption, Black uses history to provide context for our current energy conundrum.  Residing in the energy landscape of Central Pennsylvania, Black has seen the ridge and valley section gutted for coal, capped with wind turbines, and now fracked for natural gas.

 

Black is the author or editor more than ten books, including the award-winning Petrolia: The Landscape of America's First Oil Boom (Johns Hopkins, 2003) and Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), which was selected by CHOICE as an outstanding academic book.  Additionally, he has contributed essays to more than twenty books and is the editor of a number of others, including the four-volume Climate Change: An Encyclopedia of History and Science (ABC-Clio, 2013).   In addition, he served as one of the editors the Spring 2012 special issue of the Journal of American History on “Oil in American Life,” which was inspired by the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill.  His articles have appeared in many journals, including Environmental History, Reconstruction, Pennsylvania History, Civil War History, and the Journal of American History. He has received awards and support from the NEH, the Hewlett Foundation, Gilder-Lehrman Institute for History, Penn State University’s Humanities Institute and in 2012 he was awarded Penn State Altoona’s medal in Outstanding Achievement in Research & Creative Activity.  In 2017, Black was named a Distinguished Professor.

 

Emphasizing Environment and Place in History

Black's training emphasizes the importance of place in our historical narratives.   His most recent work reaches beyond energy studies to focus this approach on a number of locales.   First, the edited volume Nature’s Entrepot: Philadelphia's Urban Sphere and its Environmental Thresholds (University of Pittsburgh, 2012), which appears in the Press’s well-known series in Urban Environments.   And in 2019 Gettysburg Contested was released by GFT Books and distributed by UVA Press.  

 

For a wider audience, Black’s articles and opinion writing have appeared in OnEarth magazine, USA Today, Junior Scholastic, the Conversation, Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.  He has served as a public spokesmen on various issues related to petroleum and energy development and regularly appears for public audiences in Pennsylvania.  

 

Current Writing Returns to Petroleum

Black is currently completing Declaring Our Dependence:  Petroleum in 20th Century American Life, which is scheduled for a trade release with University of Chicago Press.