Jonathan Robins
Historian of commodities, food, and global environmental history
Oil Palm wins AHA’s Bentley Prize in World History
The American Historical Association awarded Oil Palm: a Global History (UNC Press, 2021) the 2022 Jerry Bentley Prize. The Bentley prize recognizes the best book published the prior year on any topic in world or global-scale history.
Oil Palm wins Agricultural History Society Award
Oil Palm: a Global History received the 2021 Henry A. Wallace award from the Agricultural History Society. The award recognizes the best book on agricultural history outside the United States published in 2021.
Interview: Gastropod
I was interviewed about Oil Palm: a Global History for Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley’s award-winning Gastropod podcast. The episode titled “The Most Interesting Oil in the World” aired in December 2021.
Conference:”Raw and Refined: Commodities, Processing, and Global Perspectives”
‘The Raw and the Refined: Commodities, Processing, and Power in Global Perspective’ – Keynote Lecture Date2 September 2021, 4.30pm – 5.30pm Keynote Lecture for the 2021 Commodities of Empire Workshop ‘The Raw and the Refined: Commodities, Processing, and Power in Global Perspective’ Visit this link to register for the public keynote presented by Dr. Erika Rappaport titled “Tate and State,” on the history of sugar and decolonization.
Hot industries in cold places
Oil palm is arguably the most important tropical tree crop. A few decades ago, the title would have gone to rubber, a tree that is well-commemorated in Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. A decent specimen grows in the Palm House, though the tree is not a palm at all. (For a history of the Palm House, see Kate Teltscher’s Palace of Palms) The oil palm is harder to appreciate at this site, where cold weather means it has to grow indoors.…
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Jonathan Robins 