Globalizing the Soybean: Fat, Feed, and Sometimes Food, c. 1900–1950

Description

Globalizing the Soybean asks how the soybean conquered the West and analyzes why and how the crop gained entry into agriculture and industry in regions beyond Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Historian Ines Prodöhl describes the soybean’s journey centered on three hubs: Northeast China, as the crop’s main growing area up to the Second World War; Germany, to where most of the beans in the interwar period were shipped; and the United States, which became the leading cultivator of soy worldwide during the 1940s. This book explores the German and U.S. adoption of the soybean being closely tied to global economic and political changes, such as the two world wars and the Great Depression. The attraction of the soybean to stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic was linked to a need for cheap alternatives to butter and lard and a desire for greater quantities of meat, which led to the soybean becoming a cheap resource for fat and fodder. Only occasionally was it also used as food. This volume is useful for anyone who is studying or interested in economic history and commodity trading in the twentieth century. It is also connected to the histories of capitalism, globalization, imperialism, and materiality. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Illustrations A Note on Measuring Units, Currencies, and Romanization Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction Global Commodities Fertilizer, Fat, Fodder (and Food) 1. Soy around 1900 in a Global Context Manchuria and Its Beans Crop Talks in Europe and the United States 2. Commodifying Soy in Europe: Technological Change, Imperialism, and Globalization Fat: Lubricant of Modernity Japan and the Global Soybean Trade Japanese and American Competition in China's Northeast Soybeans in the First World War 3. Fat and Feed in Germany Import Dependencies and Technological Innovations in the Weimar Republic Autarky and Shortages in Nazi Germany Soya, Manchukuo, and Japanese-German Relations, 1931–1941 Soya in Southeastern Europe 4. Americanizing Soy The Future Crop and the Department of Agriculture The Midwestern Dilemma Agricultural and Industrial Change: New Deal and Chemurgy “Soybeans Are a War Crop”: Developments in the Second World War Epilogue: The Tofu Fighter Index