Energy and History

Dear friends of the Ideas of Energy discussion series,

We  have just been talking about technologies, materials, and scientific  expertise—now we will continue with a historical look at energy. We are  pleased to invite you to our next event:

Energy and History with Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, historian at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and author of More and More and More (Penguin, 2025)

The history of energy is also a history of power, growth, and  destruction. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz looks back at earlier energy regimes  and shows how profoundly they shaped society, politics, and the  environment—and how contested many of the transitions were.
What lessons can be learned from past transitions? Why were historical  energy transitions never purely technological? And what narratives shape  our current understanding of the “energy transition”?

Together with you, we would like to explore these questions and take a historical look at current energy policy challenges.

Date: Monday, November 3, 2025
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (followed by a reception)
Location: Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), Reinhardtstraße 7, 10117 Berlin

The event will be held in English and exclusively on site.

Due to limited space, we kindly ask you to register in advance.

We look forward to seeing you there!


Best regards
Andrea Binder (FU Berlin), Zoë Johnson (GPPi) und Timm Leinker (Dezernat Zukunft)




Ideas of Energy is a joint event series organized by the  Freigeist research group “Geopolitics in the Age of Offshore Finance” at  Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin), the Global Public Policy  Institute (GPPi), and Dezernat Zukunft. As always, further information can be found in the attached flyer, and questions can be  directed to Theres Rolle (theres.rolle@fu-berlin.de).

Final episode of Ideas of ... Energy:

December 17, 2025 – Energy and Climate with Anders Levermann (PIK – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)