I tell stories about things that make our world work.
I’m a writer, teacher, and public historian with a focus on energy, technology, and the environment. I’m fascinated by hidden histories of things that seem boring but turn out to be essential to how we live today and where we might go in the future.
Examples of my work
Ethanol: A Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels
Forthcoming from University of Oklahoma Press
Taconite Dreams: The Struggle to Sustain Mining on Minnesota’s Iron Range, 1915-2000
Madison Historical: The Online Encyclopedia and Digital Archive for Madison County, Illinois
About
Jeff Manuel is a writer, college professor, and public historian. His research focuses on the intersection of energy, technology, and the environment. He is the co-author (with Tom Rogers) of Ethanol: A Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels, which is forthcoming from the University of Oklahoma Press. It is the first book linking the US and Brazilian ethanol fuel programs in the past century.
Manuel's first book, Taconite Dreams: The Struggle to Sustain Mining on Minnesota's Iron Range, 1915-2000, was published in 2015 and received several awards for nonfiction. His research has also been published in numerous academic journals. His writing for the public has appeared in the Washington Post, The Hill, and elsewhere.
Manuel is also active in public and oral history. He has been a curator and online producer for exhibitions in Minnesota and Illinois. He has also directed or contributed to community oral history projects in the St. Louis region.
Manuel lives in Edwardsville, Illinois, where he is a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Ethanol: A Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels
(forthcoming from University of Oklahoma Press)
Though ethanol, a liquid fuel made from agricultural byproducts, has generated controversy in recent years—good or bad for the environment? a big-ag boon or boondoggle?—its use goes back more than a century. Tracing the little-known history of this promising and contentious fuel, Ethanol: A Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels reveals the transnational nature of ethanol's development by its two biggest producers, the U.S. and Brazil. By drawing the connections between the shifting fortunes of ethanol in these two countries, the book presents the first full picture of the long history of this renewable fuel that from the first offered an imperfect alternative to oil.
Though generally presented as parallel stories, the histories of ethanol in the U.S. and Brazil are inextricably linked. Authors Jeffrey T. Manuel and Thomas D. Rogers show how policies in one country shaped those in the other. Brazil patterned its mid-century development on the U.S. model, adopting an automobile- and highway-focused transportation system and a fossil fuel-intensive agricultural sector. U.S. policymakers in turn took note when Brazil responded to the 1970s oil shocks by distributing ethanol nationwide, replacing half of its gasoline consumption. Then, in the 2000s, the nations' leaders worked together to dramatically expand ethanol production. Today, as a new generation of biofuels meant to power aviation and fight climate change again connects Brazilian and U.S. ethanol, Manuel and Rogers explain how the fuel's future, like its history, is complicated by technical, scientific, economic, and social questions—about how to calculate carbon emissions, agricultural land use, national security and sovereignty, and the balance between government regulation and market forces. Understanding the future of biofuels demands a reckoning with this extensive, shared history—a reckoning that Manuel and Rogers's far-reaching, deeply researched book brings into view.
Taconite Dreams: The Struggle to Sustain Mining on Minnesota’s Iron Range, 1915-2000
The first history of the fight to maintain an industry and a way of life on Minnesota’s Iron Range
Winner of the Midwestern History Association's 2016 Hamlin Garland Prize and the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award
Jeffrey T. Manuel examines how Minnesota’s Iron Range fought the dislocation that came with economic changes, technological advances, and global shifts in industrial production. Taconite Dreams demonstrates how the area fit into a larger story of regions wrestling with deindustrialization in the twentieth century.
Teaching
As a professor in the history department at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Manuel teaches courses in the histories of energy, technology, and the environment. He also teaches public history courses and supervises student internships.
Contact
If you’d like to chat about my research, freelance writing, or consulting, please feel free to email me.
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jeff (dot) manuel (at) gmail (dot) com
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SIUE History Department
Campus Box 1454
Edwardsville, IL 62026
(618) 650-2836