Dieter Schott
University of Technology
Department of History
Darmstadt, Schloss
DE-64283 Darmstadt, Germany
schott@pg.tu-darmstadt.de

Dieter Schott studied History, Political Science and English at the University of Konstanz and the Free University of Berlin. He gained his Ph.D. with a thesis on the socio-political history of the city of Konstanz in the interwar-period. As a lecturer and assistant professor at Darmstadt University of Technology he focused on the significance of urban energy and transport infrastructures for urban development in German cities of late 19th century. In 1996 his habilitation thesis “Die Vernetzung der Stadt” (= Networking the City) with a study of urban electrification in the cities of Darmstadt, Mainz and Mannheim within wider processes of urban development was accepted (published 1999). From 2000-2004 he taught as Professor for the History of Urban Planning at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, UK. In 2004 he was appointed to the chair of Modern History at Darmstadt University of Technology. He is strongly committed to teaching a Master in Urban and Environmental History, offered by TU Darmstadt. Since 2000 he has been engaged in organizing and convening the Round-Tables for Urban Environmental History and co-edited the volume on the 2002 conference at Leicester “Resources of the City” (Aldershot 2005).

Main Research Fields

• Urban and environmental history of Germany and Europe in the 19th and 20th century
• History of energy technologies and urban transport
• History of natural disasters
• History of city-river-relations in European cities

Relevant Activities

• Vice-chairman of the German Society for Urban History and Urban Research (GSU)
• Editor-in-chief of urban history journal “Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte”
• Council Member of the „International Planning History Society“
• Member of Academic Committee of „Round-Tables on Environmental History“.
• Vice-director of the research cluster „Urban Research“ at Darmstadt University of Technology
• Member of ESF-Cluster „Tensions of Europe“ in the focus group „City and Technology“
• Member of Editorial Board of journal “Global Environment”

Relevant Publications (selection)

Books:

• Dieter Schott/ Michael Toyka-Seid (eds.), Die europäische Stadt und ihre Umwelt, Darmstadt 2008
• Friedrich Lenger/ Dieter Schott (thematic issue on) Die europäische und die amerikanische Stadt. in: Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte 1/2007
• Dieter Schott/ Bill Luckin/ Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud (eds.), Resources of the City. Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe, Aldershot 2005
• Georg G. Iggers/ Dieter Schott/ Hanns H. Seidler, Michael Toyka-Seid (eds.) Hochschule – Geschichte – Stadt. Festschrift für Helmut Böhme, Darmstadt 2004
• Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud/ Harold Platt/ Dieter Schott (eds.) Cities and Catastrophes/ Villes et catastrophes. Coping with Emergency in European History / Réactions à l’urgence dans l’histoire européenne. Frankfurt-Main/ Berlin/ Bern et.al. 2002
• Die Vernetzung der Stadt. Kommunale Energiepolitik, öffentlicher Nahverkehr und die Produktion" der modernen Stadt. Darmstadt, Mainz, Mannheim 1880-1918, Darmstadt 1999 (published habilitation thesis)
• Die Konstanzer Gesellschaft 1918-1924. Der Kampf um Hegemonie im Zeichen von Novemberrevolution und Inflation, Konstanz 1989 (580 S.), (pub. PhD-thesis)

Essays / Chapters:

• Stadt und Moderne: Die Stadt als Modernisierungsagent?, in: Ute Schneider/ Lutz Raphael (eds.), Dimensionen der Moderne. Festschrift für Christof Dipper, Frankfurt am Main 2008, S. 459-479
• Empowering European Cities: Gas and Electricity in the Urban Environment, in: Mikael Hard & Thomas J. Misa (eds.) Urban Machinery: Inside the Modern European City, Cambridge/ Mass. 2008,
• 1891-1908: Die Stadt unter Strom, in: Michael Caroli & Ulrich Nieß (eds.), Geschichte der Stadt Mannheim. Bd. II 1801-1914, Heidelberg/ Ubstadt-Weiher/ Basel 2007, 498-569, 590-597, 632-638.
• Stadt und Fluss: Flüsse als städtische Umwelten im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, in: Bernd Hermann (ed.), Beiträge zum Göttinger Umwelthistorischen Kolloquium 2004-2006, Göttingen 2007, 145-162.
• Friedrich Lenger/ Dieter Schott (eds.), Die europäische und die amerikanische Stadt seit dem späten 19. Jahrhundert: Geschichtsbilder – Leitbilder – Trugbilder, in: Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte 1/2007, 5-11.
• London and its „New Towns“ and Randstad Holland: Metropolitan planning on both sides of the Channel after 1945, in: Friedrich Lenger/ Klaus Tenfelde (eds.): Die europäische Stadt im 20. Jahrhundert. Wahrnehmung – Entwicklung – Erosion, Köln/ Weimar/ Wien 2006, 283-306.
• Industrialisierung und städtische Umwelt in Deutschland, in: Franz Bosbach/ Jens Ivo Engels und Fiona Watson (eds.), Umwelt und Geschichte in Deutschland und Großbritannien/ Environment and History in Britain and Germany, München 2006, 91-104.
• Wege zur vernetzten Stadt – technische Infrastruktur in der Stadt aus historischer Perspektive, in: Informationen zur Raumentwicklung, H. 5.2006, 249-257.
• Resources of the City: Towards A European Urban Environmental History, in: Dieter Schott/ Bill Luckin/ Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud (eds.), Resources of the City. Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe, Aldershot 2005, 1-27.
• The significance of Gas for Urban Enterprises in late 19th century German Cities, in: Serge Paquier, Jean-Pierre Williot (Hrsg.), L’Industrie du Gaz en Europe aux XIXe et XXe Siècles. L’innovation entre marchés privés et collectivités publiques, Bruxelles u.a. 2005, S. 491-508.
• Urban environmental history: What lessons are there to be learnt?, in: Boreal Environment Research 9, 2004, S. 519-528.
• Electrifying German Cities: Investments in Energy Technology and Public Transport and their Impact on Urban Development 1880-1914, in: Andrea Giuntini/ Peter Hertner and Gregorio Nuñez (eds.), Urban Growth on Two Continents in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Technology, Networks, Finance and Public Regulation, Granada.. 2005, S. 179-194
• Suburbanising the masses for profit or welfare: Conflict and Cooperation between private and municipial interests in German Cities, 1890-1914, in: Colin Divall; Winstan Bond (eds.), Suburbanising the Masses: Public Transport and Urban Development in Historical Perspective, Aldershot 2003, S. 79-99.