- Examines the shifting roles of the soybean throughout world history and reveals how this reflects the development of our present global agrofood system
- Provides a historical, theoretically grounded and empirically based assessment
- Considers the soybean's future role in a desirable agrofood system which improves human health, culture and livelihoods, biosphere stewardship and the provision of ecosystem services
"The Soybean through World History is an essential guide to understanding how soy has come to play such a central role in the world food economy today. In this innovative and well-written volume, Baraibar Norberg and Deutsch provide a fascinating look at the longue duree of soy, mapping the long historical cycles through which its production has fueled vast trade networks as well as complex ecological consequences."
Jennifer Clapp, Political Economist Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo
"This is not the first book on the history of soy - but it's the first truly global and long-term account combining politico-economic and socio-ecological perspec-tives. Following soy's pathways from ancient China to modern globalization, the book explains how this commodity has become so central in the current agro-food system, including its burden for society and nature."
Ernst Langthaler, Economic Historian Professor and Head of the Department of Social and Economic History at the Johannes Kepler University Linz as well as Head of the Institute of Rural History in St. Poelten
"From the meticulous examination of ancient texts and humble contexts to the investigation of today's conglomerates, the authors trace the successive historical transformations of soy, now a key player in the planet's increasingly vulnerable and unsustainable agrofood system. Soy's social, economic, and political history, fraught as it has become, nonetheless offers a means by which the next transfor-mation, more stable and equitable, can still take place."
Carole L. Crumley, Anthropology Professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Executive Director of IHOPE at Uppsala University
"In line with revolutionizing studies of sugar, coffee, salt, cod and other trans-formative global commodities, Baribar Norberg and Deutsch have crafted a com-prehensive, yet convincing and accessible world history of soy - this ancient, ever-changing bean, arguably the most expansive element of current unsustain-able Anthropocene food-chains, but also with untapped potential to support a resilient future."
Sverker Soerlin, Environmental Historian Professor, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm and co-founder KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory
Matilda Baraibar Norberg is Associate Professor at the Department of Economic History and International Relations, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Lisa Deutsch is Assistant Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden.
1. Combining insights from political economy and environmental history: what can the soybean tell us about changes in the global agrofood system?
2. The first soybean cycle (domestication to 900 CE)
3. The second soybean cycle (1000-1860)
4. The roots of the third soybean cycle (1860-1949)
5. The regime of the third soybean cycle (1950-today)
6. Historicizing soy: towards a new rupture?
