This book examines the changing roles and functions of the soybean throughout world history and discusses how this reflects the complex processes of agrofood globalization. The book uses a historical lens to analyze the processes and features that brought us to the current global configuration of the soybean commodity chain. From its origins as a peasant food in ancient China, today the protein-rich soybean is by far the most cultivated biotech crop on Earth; used to make a huge variety of food and industrial products, including animal feed, tofu, cooking oil, soy sauce, biodiesel and soap. While there is a burgeoning amount of literature on how the contemporary global soy web affects large tracts of our planet’s social-ecological systems, little attention has been given to the questions of how we got here and what alternative roles the soybean has played in the past. This book fills this gap and demonstrates that it is impossible to properly comprehend the contemporary global soybean chain, or the wider agrofood system of which it is a part, without looking at both their long and short historical development. However, a history of the soybean and its changing roles within equally changing agrofood systems is inexorably a history about globalization. Not only does this book map out where soybeans are produced, but also who governs, wields power and accumulates capital in the entire commodity chain from inputs in production to consumption, as well as identifying the institutional context the global commodity chain operates within. The book concludes with a discussion of the main challenges and contradictions of the current soy regime that could trigger its rupture and end. This book is essential reading for students, practitioners and scholars interested in agriculture and food systems, global commodity chains, globalization, environmental history, economic history and social-ecological systems.

"This book examines the changing roles and functions of the soybean throughout world history and discusses how this reflects the complex processes of agrofood globalization. The book uses a historical lens to analyse the processes and features that brought us to the current global configuration of soy. From its origins as a peasant food in ancient China, today the protein-rich soybean is by far the most cultivated biotech crop on Earth, used to make a huge variety of food and industrial products, including animal feed, tofu, cooking oil, soy sauce, biodiesel and soap. While there is a burgeoning amount of literature on how the contemporary global soy web affects large tracts of our planet's social and ecological systems, little attention has been given to the questions of how we got here and what alternative roles the soybean has played in the past. This book fills this gap and demonstrates that it is impossible to properly comprehend the contemporary global soybean chain, or the wider agrofood system of which it is a part, without looking at both their long and short historical development. However, a history of the soybean and its changing roles within equally changing agrofood systems is inexorably a history about globalization. Not only does this book map out where soybeans are produced, but also who governs, wields power and accumulates capital in the entire commodity chain from production to consumption, as well as identifying the institutional context the global commodity chain operates within. The book concludes by considering the soybean's future role in a desirable agrofood system which improves human health, culture and livelihoods, and the provision of ecosystem services. This book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in agriculture and food systems, global commodity chains, globalization, environmental history, economic history and social-ecological systems"--

The world's most comprehensive, well documented, and well illustrated book on soy in Korea. With extensive index and 80 photographs and illustration. Free of charge in digital format on Google Books

The world's most comprehensive, well documented, and well illustrated book on this subject, with 445 photographs and illustrations. Plus an extensive index.

Covers Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vietnam.

The world;s most comprehensive, we documented, and well illustrated book on this subject. With extensive index. 520 photographs and illustrations. Free of charge in digital format on Google Books.

This book won the prestigious Oberly Award for the best bibliography in the agricultural or natural sciences in 2009 It contains 2,336 references. Begins with a chronology of soy in Africa from 1857 to 2009. This is a book about the history of soybeans and soyfoods in Africa, Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoro Islands, Comoros, Congo Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of (DRC), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Cote d'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Niger, Reunion, Rhodesia, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sao Tome and Principe, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Contains a full-page color map of soy in Africa, plus 25 historical illustrations and photos, many color.

Agricultural history has enjoyed a rebirth in recent years, in part because the agricultural enterprise promotes economic and cultural connections in an era that has become ever more globally focused, but also because of agriculture's potential to lead to conflicts over precious resources. The Oxford Handbook of Agricultural History reflects this rebirth and examines the wide-reaching implications of agricultural issues, featuring essays that touch on the green revolution, the development of the Atlantic slave plantation, the agricultural impact of the American Civil War, the rise of scientific and corporate agriculture, and modern exploitation of agricultural labor.

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 around 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.

The world's most comprehensive, well documented, and well illustrated book on this subject. With extensive subject and geographic index. 107 photographs and illustrations - mostly color. Free of charge in digital PDF format.