Alan MacEachern


image of Alan MacEachern

Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada                                                                                                                      PhD, Queen’s University, 1997
Telephone: 519-661-2111 ext. 84993
Email: amaceach@uwo.ca
Office: Lawson Hall 2268
Office hours: Mondays, 9:30- 11:30 am

 

Research Interests

Professor MacEachern teaches & researches Canadian history, with an emphasis on environmental & climate history. 


Teaching Philosophy

A healthy society spends most of its energies trained on the present & the future. But a healthy society also devotes some of its energies to remembering & understanding the past. The historian's job is to tell or remind people today about the lives of others in the past. That's it. Doing so goes a small way to fulfilling the obligation that people of the past are not forgotten. And it holds a promise & a threat to people of today, that they won't be forgotten either.  

I am available at the coordinates above, and welcome hearing from you.


Major Research Projects

I have just completed a project about Myrtle Webb, whose diary tells of living for a half-century in "Green Gables," as it was in the process of becoming the most famous house in Canada. Becoming Green Gables will be published July 2024, with the entire diary available in an accompanying online exhibit. I am also in the early stages of writing Observation Nation, a book on the Meteorological Service of Canada’s weather observation program.

I was the founding director of NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment, and am the editor of the Canadian History & Environment series at University of Calgary Press.


Selected Publications

Books

Environmental Fable Book Cover

Becoming Green Gables, McGill-Queen's University Press, July 2024.

 

 

 

Image of Book Cover "The Summer Trade"

(with Edward MacDonald)  The Summer Trade, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022

 

 

 

Image of Book Cover "The Miramichi Fire. A History"

The Miramichi Fire: A History, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020.

 Image of Book Cover "Origins"

(with Robert Wardhaugh) Origins: Canadian History to Confederation, 8th ed., Nelson, 2017.

Destinies book cover

(with Robert WardhaughDestinies: Canadian History since Confederation, 8th ed. Nelson, 2017.

Method & Meaning Book Cover

(with William J TurkelMethod and Meaning in Canadian Environmental History. Nelson, 2009. Includes "An Introduction, in Theory and Practice" and "Lost in Shipping: Canadian National Parks and the International Donation of Wildlife."

Environmental Fable Book Cover

The Institute of Man and Resources: An Environmental Fable. Island Studies Press, 2003.

Natural Selections Book Cover

Natural Selections: National Parks in Atlantic Canada, 1935-1970McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.


Recent Chapters & Journal Articles


Recent Public & Digital History Projects

  • "Home-Front Green Gables," Canada's History, Apr-May 2023, 37-43.
  • (with Edward MacDonald) “The Summer Trade” museum exhibit, Confederation Centre of the Arts. Charlottetown, PEI, Jun - Sep 2022.
  • “Observing Weather, Revealing Climate, Knowing Nature,” part of RCCGlasgow exhibit, COP26, Glasgow, Scotland, Nov 2021.
  • The Rainmaker,” Canada’s History, Aug-Sep 2021, 28-34.
  • Forecasting Trouble,” Canada’s History, Aug-Sep 2021, 34-5.
  • Occasional historical posts on the Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Weather App, Jan - Dec 2021.

Conference Organization


Awards and Distinctions

  • Visiting Scholar, L.M. Montgomery Institute, University of PEI, Charlottetown, PEI, 2021-23.
  • Visiting Professor, School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, 2017-22.
  • Carson Fellow, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, 2016.
  • SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Clusters grant, principal investigator, 2007-15.