At a young age, John Broich felt a compulsion to understand how things came to be. Well before his high school years, he remembers thinking that the fundamental questions about how people came to act and think weren’t being asked.
Like any good researcher, he began searching for answers to these questions.
“A great high school teacher taught me the worth of learning—something not taken for granted where I’m from,” said Broich, assistant professor of history. “And that, combined with my instinct, led me to history in college.”
Broich attended Saint Olaf College, where he graduated with a degree in English, history, and medieval studies before earning a master’s in history from University of Maine and a PhD in British history from Stanford University. He and his brother became the first two in his father’s family to graduate from college; both then went on to graduate and professional school.
His instinct for history has been on display at Case Western Reserve University since he became a member of the faculty in 2007. Broich’s teaching and research interests include the history of the British Empire, the history of race, and environmental history and public health history.
Readers can get a peek into Broich’s inquisitive mind in his latest book, London, Water and the Making of the Modern City, where he asks—and answers—several fundamental questions, such as:
- Where do our assumptions come from about the proper role of city government?
- Why did officials in Britain and the U.S decide cities should provide citizens with very cheap water? Why not food?
- Should cities have created nearly free, high-quality municipal hospitals in the mid-1800s before water supplies?
