Simon Pirani is a British writer, historian and researcher of energy. He is honorary professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Durham. From 2007 to 2021 he was senior research fellow at the

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, founded in 1982, is an independent energy research institute, based in Oxford. Their stated aim is to undertake advanced research on issues currently affecting the world’s energy sector, and to help inf ...

(with a period as senior visiting research fellow in 2017-19). In 2018 Pirani published ''Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption'', in which he portrays consumption growth as a result of world capitalist economic expansion. He argues that the relationship between technological systems that account for most fossil fuel use, and the social and economic systems in which they are embedded, is paramount. His articles and presentations on this theme are collected on his website. He also writes about these themes on a blog, People & Nature. Pirani's earlier research as a historian centred on Russia, most notably in ''The Russian Revolution in Retreat 1920–1924: Soviet workers and the new communist elite'' (2008), a work of social history that details the increasingly fractious relationship between organised labour and the Communist party in Moscow in the early Soviet period, and ''Change in Putin's Russia: Power Money and People'' (2010). Pirani has also written widely on natural gas markets in the former Soviet Union, including as co-editor of, and contributor to, ''The Russian Gas Matrix: How Markets Are Driving Change'' (2014). Prior to entering academia, Pirani worked as a journalist. He authored a series of reports on the

Georgiy Gongadze Georgiy Ruslanovych Gongadze (21 May 1969 – 17 September 2000) was a Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped and murdered in 2000 near Kyiv. He founded the online newspaper ''Ukrainska Pravda'' along with Olena Prytula in 2000. He was born i ...

case in Ukraine. Pirani writes that his outlook was "formed in the Marxist tradition". He was a member of the

Workers Revolutionary Party (UK) The Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) is a Trotskyism, Trotskyist group in Britain once led by Gerry Healy. In the mid-1980s, it split into several smaller groups, one of which retains possession of the name. The Club The WRP grew out of the f ...

(a Trotskyist group) from 1972 until the early 1990s, and was the editor of the British mineworkers’ union journal (1990–95). Simon Pirani is one of four children of

Felix Pirani __NOTOC__ Felix Arnold Edward Pirani (2 February 1928 – 31 December 2015) was a British theoretical physicist, and professor at King's College London, specialising in gravitational physics and general relativity. Pirani and Hermann Bondi wr ...

, a noted theoretical physicist.

References

Weblinks

Simon Piarani Homepage
at

Blog of Simon Piarani
at

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Simon Piarani
at Academia.edu
Simon Piraani
at

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Simon Piarani
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pirani, Simon Living people 1957 births 20th-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century British non-fiction writers British climate activists British environmentalists British historians British Marxists British people of Italian-Jewish descent Eco-socialists Historians of communism Jewish British writers Jewish non-fiction writers Jewish socialists Labor historians People from Woolwich Workers Revolutionary Party (UK) members Writers from the Royal Borough of Greenwich