Research

My research employs ordinary commodities to reveal the social and environmental impact of modern agriculture. My latest project examines the history of biomass energy in rural Canada, and I have also written about sodbusting and soil treatment on Canadian farms.

For ongoing updates on the work I do as Canada Research Chair at UPEI, see the website of the GeoREACH Lab (Geospatial Research in Atlantic Canadian History)

See also the work I do on agricultural commodities and energy, including:

• Flax
• Firewood
• Fertilizer
• The Sustainable Farm Systems project

Books

Joshua MacFadyen, Flax Americana: A History of the Fibre and Oil that Covered a Continent. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press,

 

 

 

 

 

Edward MacDonald, Joshua MacFadyen, and Irene Novaczek, eds., Time and a Place: An Environmental History of Prince Edward Island (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016). ISBN: 9780773546936.

Articles and Chapters

In addition to the research published in my blogs, books, and the other items above, some of my print publications are available here:

J. MacFadyen, J Infante-Amate, B Luedtke, J Robins, and K Stevens, “Fats of the Land: New Histories of Agricultural Oils,” Roundtable, Agricultural History 93 no. 3 (2019), 520-546. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3098/ah.2019.093.3.520

J. Marull, C. Cattaneo, S. Gingrich, M. González de Molina, G. I. Guzmán, A. Watson, J. MacFadyen, M. Pons, E. Tello, “Comparative Energy-Landscape Integrated Analysis (ELIA) of past and present agroecosystems in North America and Europe from the 1830s to the 2010s.” Agricultural Systems 175 (October 2019), pp. 46-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2019.05.011

Joshua MacFadyen and Andrew Watson, “Energy in a woodland-livestock agroecosystem: Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1870-2010,” Regional Environmental Change Volume 18, Issue 4 (April 2018), pp 1033–1045. Published Online, March 2018 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1315-9

Joshua MacFadyen, “Long-range forecasts: Linseed oil and the hemispheric movement of market and climate data, 1890–1939,” Business History 59(7) (October 2017). Published online, April 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2017.1304915

 

 

 

 

Owen Temby and Joshua MacFadyen, “Urban Elites, Energy, and Smoke Policy in Montreal during the Interwar Period,” Urban History Review / Revue d’histoire urbaine, Fall 2016 / Spring 2017.

“Building Resilient Coastal Communities in the Context of Climate Change.” 169-190. withBrown, H.C. Peach, Angus, R., Armitage, D., Brown, S., Charles, A., and Khirfan, L. In L. Brinklow and R. Gibson eds., From Black Horses to White Steeds: Building Community Resilience (Charlottetown, PEI: Island Studies Press, 2017). ISBN: 978-1-988692-07-4 Publisher website.

Joshua MacFadyen, “Hewers of Wood: A History of Wood Energy in Canada,” in Ruth Sandwell ed., Powering Up: The History of Fuel, Power and Energy in Canada, 1800-2015 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press), 129-161. Publisher website.

 

 

 

 

Joshua MacFadyen, “The Fertile Crescent: Agricultural Land Use on Prince Edward Island, 1861-1971,” in Edward MacDonald, Joshua MacFadyen, and Irene Novaczek, eds., Time and a Place: An Environmental History of Prince Edward Island, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), 195-217. Publisher website.

 

 

 

Joshua MacFadyen, “Spinning flax in mills, households, and the Canadian state, 1850-1870,” in James Murton, Dean Bavington, and Carly Dokis, eds., Subsistence Under Capitalism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016), 76-102. Publisher website.

Joshua MacFadyen and William Glen, “Top-down history: Delimiting forests, farms, and the Agricultural Census on Prince Edward Island using Aerial Photography, c.1900-2000,” in Jennifer Bonnell and Marcel Fortin eds., Historical GIS Research in Canada (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, Canadian History & Environment Series, 2014), 197-223.

 

 

 

Joshua MacFadyen, “Drawing Lines in the Ice: Regulating Mussel Mud Digging in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence,” in Claire Campbell and Robert Summerby-Murray eds., Land and Sea: Environmental Histories of Atlantic Canada (Fredericton: Acadiensis, 2013), 99-119.

 

 

 

 

Joshua MacFadyen and Alan MacEachern, “Time Flies: Aerial Photography and Landscape Change in Prince Edward Island, 1935-2010,” American Society for Environmental History meeting, Toronto, ON, April 2013 [Awarded the Best Poster].

 

 

 

 

Joshua MacFadyen, “Breaking Sod or Breaking Even? Flax on the Northern Great Plains and Prairies, 1889-1930″ Agricultural History 83 no. 2 (Spring 2009): 221-246.