Thomas Zeller’s professional interests include the environmental history of large infrastructures, such as roadways and river systems. He has published a monograph on the landscape history of the German autobahn system, and is in the process of completing a book on the motoring experience in the United States and Germany in the twentieth century. Additionally, he has co-edited four volumes: Rivers in History: Perspectives on Waterways in Europe and North America (2008); The World Beyond the Windshield: Roads and Landscapes in the United States and Europe (2008); How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich (2005); Germany’s Nature: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental History (2005). Zeller is an associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, where he teaches environmental history, the history of technology, and science and technology studies. He received a Dr. phil. in history from LMU Munich in 1999, and has worked in the United States ever since.
RCC Research Project: Creating a Safer Environment? Death, Mutilation, and Automobility in the United States and Germany, 1930–2000 (PDF, 31kb)
Film Interview with Thomas Zeller
Selected Publications
- Driving Germany: The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930–1970. New York: Berghahn Books, 2007.
- Rivers in History: Perspectives on Waterways in Europe and North America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008. Edited with Christof Mauch.
- The World Beyond the Windshield: Roads and Landscapes in the United States and Europe. Athens: Ohio University Press / Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008. Edited with Chrisotf Mauch.
- How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005. Edited with Franz-Josef Brüggemeier and Mark Cioc.
- Germany’s Nature: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental History. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Edited with Thomas Lekan.