Caroline Johnston
Biography
Assistant Professor of US History Since 1920.
Caroline is a political, environmental, and economic historian of the modern United States. Her research examines modern right-wing movements and fossil fuel economies in the late twentieth century. She grew up in Denver, Colorado and earned her PhD from Vanderbilt University before coming to Cambridge.
Her first book project examines how the Rocky Mountain energy boom between 1973 and 1982 fostered powerful conservative organizations and ideas. It traces energy executives in the Rocky Mountains as they established important tenets of modern right-wing ideologies that mirrored their industries’ extractive methods. The project follows political organizers amidst the regional oil and coal boom as they tied cowboy aesthetics and carbon consumption to ascendant right-wing corporatist politics.
Degrees
- BA in History, McGill University
- MA in History, McGill University
- PhD in History, Vanderbilt University
Special Research Interests
Modern American History, Political Economy, Energy History, Right-Wing Movements