Technology and Culture

Soybeans by now are ubiquitous in various manufactured goods and human and animal diets. Increasingly, academics from various disciplines have become interested in the histories, developments, and changes associated with soybeans. Historian Ines Prodöhl adds to this body of literature in her highly detailed book Globalizing the Soybean. She analyzes how soy entered the Western world in the first half of the twentieth century and argues that the technological possibility to separate soybeans into their constituents of oil and soymeal enabled the introduction of the soybean as an ordinary ingredient of daily life in Europe and the United States.

Based on thorough archival analysis, such as at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., Prodöhl explores this history through its dominant political, industrial, and governmental actors. She sets out to [End Page 376] address perceptions of Chinese soy (ch. 1) and the interplay of geopolitical disputes, imperialism, and technological innovations that, according to her, enabled the transfer of the crop to Europe (ch. 2). The author argues that this altered agricultural and industrial practices and impacted policies of resource autonomy in Europe and the United States (chs. 3–4). Throughout the book, Prodöhl weaves together these seemingly detached places and actors that were, nevertheless, involved economically and politically with soy. In doing so, she highlights the parallel effects of soy expansion in different places.

Technological change plays an important role in the book, as the author shows how technology was intertwined with the perception, consumption, cultivation, and processing of soybeans. Technological innovation made the travel of the crop and its byproducts possible, highlighted by Prodöhl's example of the expanding railway connections in Europe. In addition, she unveils how through technological advances soybeans could be used in various industrial processes, which increased the demand for them. An example of this is her analysis of millers in Germany who developed new processing methods and through this increased their political influence on economic regulations of soy. Last but not least, technological innovations went hand in hand with political measures, enabling the entry of soy into European diets. Therefore, Prodöhl shows how technology served as a political changemaker and impacted notions of self-sufficiency and resource independence with regards to soy.

The book deserves much praise, particularly for situating important changes in the food system around soy in the first half of the twentieth century. However, the deliberately unproblematized combination of the often-employed terms "Western world" and "globalization" points to a Eurocentric globalism, in which narratives about Western actors as the main drivers of global history are reinforced. In addition, while the author acknowledges Japanese imperial activities in northeastern China as a driver of the expansion of the soybean toward Europe, she does not engage with the socio-ecological consequences that might have affected the expansion of soy. A more attentive approach to imperial dynamics could have potentially enhanced her perspective on northeastern China as not only a producer of soy but also an agent in its distribution and perception.

Prodöhl situates agency almost exclusively on the side of Western institutional and governmental actors. This focus fails to appreciate the agency of individuals, independent agents, and obscured processes that did not adhere to master narratives of expansion and increasing adoption of soy. When she does incorporate individual narratives, they are mainly used to illustrate the development of a larger group of soy-supporting actors. By balancing institutional actors more with individual and marginalized perspectives, the impact of soy in local environments could have become clearer, diversifying the range of actors addressed and shedding a more ambivalent light on the expansion of the soybean. [End Page 377]

Globalizing the Soybean is a substantial contribution to the historiography of soy, which has so far mainly focused on places of soy production in the second half of the twentieth century. C. de Majo and C. M. da Silva, for example, juxtaposed local...