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The seminar examines social, political, and cultural arrangements generated by different energy sources. Moving in the first part of the course from the rise of Islam in Arabia, via the Dutch Golden Age, to colonial India, we explore various polities sustained by different driving forces. We then examine the multifaceted history of fossil fuels, from the adoption of coal to the shift to oil, and the political ramifications of such transitions. As we prepare for another shift, away from depleting fossil fuels and back to some of the energy sources that carbon-based energy supplanted, this history is timelier than ever.