Dagomar Degroot is an environmental historian whose work combines the methods and evidence of the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. His scholarship is focused on understanding how environmental change, on Earth and beyond, has shaped human history, and on translating those insights into forms that matter for scholarship, policy, and public life. He is currently an Associate Professor of Environmental History at Georgetown University. 

His first book, The Frigid Golden Age (Cambridge University Press, 2018), traces the complex and sometimes counterintuitive impacts of the Little Ice Age on the Dutch Republic. The book argues that aspects of the republic were unusually adaptive and resilient in the face of climate change, partly accounting for the so-called “Dutch Golden Age.” The Financial Times named it one of the ten best history books of 2018.

His most recent book, Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean: An Environmental History of Our Place in the Solar System (Harvard University Press and Penguin, 2025), tells the story of how environmental change throughout the cosmos shaped five hundred years of human civilization. The book has been lauded by Scientific American, New Scientist, and Nautilus as a book of the year. 

Degroot’s work has been featured in academic journals devoted to both history and natural science, including Nature and the American Historical Review, and he is the lead editor of several volumes on the history of environmental change, including the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Resilience in the History of Climate Change. 

He also writes for popular audiences in widely read publications such as Aeon Magazine, The Conversation, National Geographic and the Washington Post. He similarly appeals to mass audiences with other popular online content, such as the award-winning podcast, website, and video series, “The Climate Chronicles.” 

Degroot has shared his unique perspectives of the past with large audiences and policymakers, corporate leaders, and journalists in cities across the world, from Wuhan to Washington, DC.

His first book, The Frigid Golden Age (Cambridge University Press, 2018), traces the complex and sometimes counterintuitive impacts of the Little Ice Age on the Dutch Republic. The book argues that aspects of the republic were unusually adaptive and resilient in the face of climate change, partly accounting for the so-called “Dutch Golden Age.” The Financial Times named it one of the ten best history books of 2018.