Jonathan Andrew Lear is a historian of modern Japan and Germany whose research focuses on the intellectual, cultural, and environmental history of energy. He is an independent scholar and advisor in UC Berkeley’s Political Economy program; he has taught history at UC Berkeley, Stanford University's Continuing Studies Program, and Santa Clara University. His current book project, Making and Breaking the Atomic Age in Japan and Germany, 1920–2000, examines the history of Japan and West Germany’s commercial atomic energy programs.