Position:

Environmental Historian and Associate Professor and Director, Department of History, Northern Illinois University

Summary:

Andy Bruno is an environmental historian of Russia and the Soviet Union with an interest in many aspects of human interactions with the natural world. His main scholarly ambition has been to demonstrate the pertinence of environmental perspectives to major questions in Russian history. This goal has led him to write about animals and avalanches, energy and economy, revolution and repression, waste and water, science and socialism, and other themes. He has highlighted the role of nature as an actor in history and the place of the Russian environmental experience in comparative and global history. A focus on specific locations—the Russian Arctic and the Siberian taiga, for instance—also characterizes his approach to environmental history. Most recently, his research has turned toward questions of human engagements with outer space and the variable climate system on this planet.

Research Focus:

• Russian history
• Comparative environmental history
• Climate history
• World history and European history