Prof to speak at Harvard on his book for Swedish Foundation
Release Date: February 16, 2015
PUEBLO -Colorado State University-Pueblo History Professor Dr. Jonathan Rees has been invited to speak as part of the Declinism Series on decay later this month at Harvard University in Boston, Mass., thanks to the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, a private foundation whose principal objective is to facilitate scientific research.
On Feb. 24, Rees will discuss his 2013 book, Refrigeration Nation: A History of Ice, Appliances, and Enterprise in America, which explores innovative methods and gadgets that Americans have invented to keep perishable food cold-from cutting river and lake ice and shipping it to consumers for use in their iceboxes to the development of electrically powered equipment that ushered in a new age of convenience and health.
Founded in 1947 by the late Consul General Axel Ax:son Johnson and his wife Margaret, owner of the Nordstjernan Group, the organization focuses on a small number of humanistic areas and projects that have prospects of providing effects deemed to be long-term and of high quality. The Foundation supports individuals, ideas and humanistic projects that run the risk of finding themselves outside current trends, but which, in the long-term, are deemed to be of decisive benefit to the public interest by preserving traditions and by renewing and developing society. Driven by a sense of civic responsibility, the Foundation conducts activities of long-term, decisive importance for the development of society from a comparative international perspective.
Believing that a community thrives on human encounters, the Foundation constitutes a forum for independent, intellectual and spiritual discussion in Sweden, for which an important element is to introduce the international, interdisciplinary humanist debate.
"This invitation is a sign that the book has been very well-received, both among historians and other scholars," Rees said. Refrigeration Nation has received many positive reviews, including one from the American Historical Review, the most prominent journal in the historical discipline, which described it as "a smart and illuminating book that will be of great interest to anyone engaged with either the history of technology or the history of food."
Colorado State University - Pueblo is a regional, comprehensive university emphasizing professional, career-oriented, and applied programs. Displaying excellence in teaching, celebrating diversity, and engaging in service and outreach, CSU-Pueblo is distinguished by access, opportunity, and the overall quality of services provided to its students.
