People
Faculty
Interests
Alison Frank’s teaching and research focus on transnational approaches to the history of central and eastern Europe. She teaches courses on the global history of commodities and European environmental history as well as courses on the Habsburg Empire and its successor states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her first book, Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia (2005), was awarded the Barbara Jelavich 2006 book prize, the Austrian Cultural Forum 2006 Book Prize, and the Polish Studies Association 2006 Orbis Book Prize. In her current project, she turns her attention to Austria-Hungary’s Adriatic coastline (between Trieste, Fiume/Rijeka, and Pola/Pula), exploring the intersection between intellectual and cultural trends, social movements, economic development, and environmental change. Additional interests include the transformation of the Alpine environment, religiosity and conversion, and late imperial Vienna. Frank offers general exam fields in German-speaking Europe (modern), Eastern or Central Europe (modern), and European Environmental History.
Selected Publications
- "The Petroleum War of 1910: Standard Oil, Austria, and the Limits of the Multinational Corporation," American Historical Review 114, no. 1 (February 2009)
- “The Pleasant and the Useful: Pilgrimage and Tourism in Habsburg Mariazell,” Austrian History Yearbook 40 (2009)
- Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (2005)
Alison Frank
Position: John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences
Field: Modern Europe; International
Specialty: Modern Central European History, International History; European Environmental History
Leave:
Contact Info
Room 404
27 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
617.495.4303 ext. 281
Office Hours: Monday 1:00-2:30

