"The Largest Air-Conditioned Room in the World": Houston and the History of Climate Change

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• Jonathan Levy (Sciences Po)
• Thursday 30 October 2025, 17:15-18:45
• Lightfoot Room, Old Divinity School, St John’s College.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr AM Price.

This talk draws from a book-in-progress that aspires to write the history of climate change in the late twentieth-century from the perspective of the history of a city: Houston, Texas. Houston has long been the corporate headquarters of the global oil economy. Because of its unique urban form, dominated by sprawl, automobile use, and climate control through air-conditioning, Houston has the most energy-intensive form of urban life in the world. This talk will draw from a chapter of the book that details the rise of air-conditioning in the city, as well as its entanglement with the histories of real estate and civil rights. It focuses upon the construction of the Astrodome (1965), when it was built the “largest air-conditioned room in the world.”

This talk is part of the Core Seminar in Economic and Social History series.

This talk is part of the History and Economics Seminar series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Economic and Social History Seminars
• History and Economics Seminar
• Lightfoot Room, Old Divinity School, St John’s College
• history
• xl669's list

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