Wesleyan portrait of Paul H. Erickson

Paul H. Erickson

Associate Professor of History

37 Broad Street, 215
860-685-5748

Associate Professor, Science in Society

860-685-5748

Associate Professor, Environmental Studies

860-685-5748

perickson@wesleyan.edu

BA Harvard University
MA Univ of Wisconsin Madison
PHD Univ of Wisconsin Madison

Paul H. Erickson

Prof. Erickson is a historian of science whose work explores connections between the human sciences and natural sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries, with special interest in the history of the environmental sciences, the history of economic thought, and the history of mathematical models and theory development across scientific disciplines.  His first book, The World the Game Theorists Made (2015), traced the post-World War II adoption of game theory and related models of rational choice in fields from operations research and economics to social psychology and evolutionary biology.  His current research focuses on the history of ideas of growth and development as they moved between the social and natural sciences from the 19th century onward, and on the changing relationship between economics and the environmental sciences during this period. 

Academic Affiliations

Office Hours

Spring 2023: MW 3-4

 

Courses

Spring 2024
HIST 221 - 01
History of Ecology

HIST 307 - 01
Economy of Nature and Nations

Fall 2024
HIST 254 - 01
Science in Western Culture

HIST 385 - 01
Science and the State