







Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! This essay will hopefully be the first post in a series (II, III, IV, A) covering some of th…
Collections: Bread, How Did they Make it? Part III: Actually Farming
Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! As the third part (I, II, III, IV, A) of our look at the basic structure of food production …

Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part II: Big Farms
Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! This is the second part (I, II, III, IV, A) of our look at the basic structure of food produ…

Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Part IV: Markets, Merchants and the Tax Man
Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! As the fourth and final part (I, II, III) of our look at the basic structure of food product…

Collections: Bread, How Did They Make It? Addendum: Rice!
Thanks to our helpful volunteer narrator, this entire post series is now also available in audio format! As an addendum on to our four-part look at the general structures of the farming of cereal g…


Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVe: The No-Rest Of It
This is the fifth dish of the fourth course of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers, who made up a majority of all of the hum…

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVc: Rent and Extraction
This is the third piece of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers – a majority of all of the humans who have…

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVd: Spinning Plates
This is the fourth thread of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers, who make up a majority of all of the hu…

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVb: Working Days
This is the continuation – the first of several – of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers R…

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part I: Households
This is the first post in a series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) discussing the basic contours of life – birth, marriage, labor, subsistence, death – of pre-modern peas…

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part V: Life In Cycles
This is the fifth and final part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) looking at the structures of life for pre-modern peasant farmers and showing how historical modeling ca…

Unauthorized Bread: Real rebellions involve jailbreaking IoT toasters
Cory Doctorow's book, Radicalized, is up for a CBC award. To celebrate, here's an excerpt.

Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part II: Scouring in the Shire
This post is also available in audio form, thanks to the efforts of our volunteer narrator. This is the second part of our four part (I, II, III, IVa, IVb) look at the production of textiles (parti…

Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVa: Subsistence and a Little More
This is the start of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb, IVc, IVd,IVe, V) discussing the structures of life for pre-modern peasants, who made up the majority of all humans w…

Bread Is Broken (Published 2015)
Industrial production destroyed both the taste and the nutritional value of wheat. One scientist believes he can undo the damage.

Agriculture research summaries
Read short summaries of agricultural studies tailored to B.C. farmers and producers.