Do Coal and Oil Drive History? Rethinking Determinism and Human Agency

Why have societies proved so incapable of abandoning fossil fuels despite overwhelming evidence of climate change? Reviewing Peter Wagner's Carbon Societies, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Sacha Loeve's Carbon, and On Barak's Heat, a History, this essay argues that these works collectively invite historians of technology to reconsider the relationship between material determinism and human agency. Rather than treating coal and oil as passive resources or locating historical change primarily in social, cultural, or political processes, the books reveal how hydrocarbons have actively shaped modern forms of freedom, material affluence, and embodied experience. Recognizing the constitutive power of nonhuman materials need not diminish human agency. Instead, a more materially grounded understanding of the reciprocal relationship between humans and hydrocarbons offers a richer explanation for both the persistence of fossil-fuel dependence and the possibilities for overcoming it in response to the climate crisis.