Die Dynamiken globaler Vernetzung: Mandschurische Sojabohnen auf dem Weltmarkt

This article traces why and when the Western demand for soy emerged and also how the plant subsequently shaped Manchuria, a semi-colonized region in northeast China, where it became a staple crop for export. In the early 1900s, when soy‘s oilyielding potential was discovered, European oil mills took to using it on a large scale. The comparatively cheap oil was useful for manufacturing a variety of goods and especially margarine, shortening, and beauty products. Trade in Manchurian-grown soybeans flourished in the 1920s with the dynamic flow of goods, ideas, and people generating differing consumer habits and needs. But soy also proved valuable in the Depression-shaken world of the 1930s due to its low price. It was a globalized crop, connecting people of various regions but also separating them because of their varying uses of it.