You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
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...
A prize-winning memoirist and nature writer turns to the lives of plants entangled in our human world to explore belonging, displacement, identity, and the truths of our shared future A seed slips beyond a garden wall. A tree is planted on a precarious border. A shrub is stolen from its culture and its land. What happens when these plants leave their original homes and put down roots elsewhere? In fourteen essays, Dispersals explores the entanglements of the plant and human worlds: from species considered invasive, like giant hogweed; to those vilified but intimate, like soy; and those like kelp, on which our futures depend. Each of the plants considered in this collection are somehow perceived as being ‘out of place’—weeds, samples collected through imperial science, crops introduced and transformed by our hand. Combining memoir, history, and scientific research in poetic prose, Jessica J. Lee meditates on the question of how both plants and people come to belong, why both cross borders, and how our futures are more entwined than we might imagine.
The Jewish communities of East and Southeast Asia display an impressive diversity. Jonathan Goldstein’s book covers the period from 1750 and focuses on seven of the area’s largest cities and trading emporia: Singapore, Manila, Taipei, Harbin, Shanghai, Rangoon, and Surabaya. The book isolates five factors which contributed to the formation of transnational, multiethnic, and multicultural identity: memory, colonialism, regional nationalism, socialism, and Zionism. It emphasizes those factors which preserved specifically Judaic aspects of identity. Drawing extensively on interviews conducted in all seven cities as well as governmental, institutional, commercial, and personal archives, censuses, and cemetery data, the book provides overviews of communal life and intimate portraits of leading individuals and families. Jews were engaged in everything from business and finance to revolutionary activity. Some collaborated with the Japanese while others confronted them on the battlefield. The book attempts to treat fully and fairly the wide spectrum of Jewish experience ranging from that of the ultra-Orthodox to the completely secular.
"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 Grea...
This book provides a unique insight into the world of commodity trading companies, often depicted as the hidden companies of the global economy and showcases how they were instrumental in bringing about the economic integration of new commodities and far-flung regions into the first global economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The late nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented phase of global economic integration. As organisers of global trade, trading companies specialising in commodities were instrumental in creating this first global economy. From soybeans to cultural artefacts, from seal hides to rubber, trading companies connected far-flung regions at or beyond...
Since the seventeenth century, Chinese, Japanese, Manchu, Russian, and other imperial forces have defied Manchuria’s unrelenting summers and unforgiving winters to fight for sovereignty over the natural resources of Northeast Asia. Until now, historians have focused on rivalries between the region’s imperial invaders. Empire and Environment in the Making of Manchuria examines the interplay of climate and competing economic and political interests in the region’s vibrant – and violent – cultural narrative. In this unique and compelling analysis of Manchuria’s environmental history, contributors demonstrate how geography shaped the region’s past. Families that settled this borderland reaped its riches while at the mercy of an unforgiving and hotly contested landscape. As China’s strength as a world leader continues to grow, this volume invites exploration of the indelible links between empire and environment – and shows how the geopolitical future of this global economic powerhouse is rooted in its past.
Hebrew encyclopedias have an intriguing history. The genre, which began as modest initiatives to disseminate general knowledge and strengthen literacy among Russian Jews, quickly became the most popular in modern Hebrew literature, with tens of thousands of subscribers to publications such as Encyclopaedia Hebraica and Encyclopaedia Biblica. The makers of these vast bodies of knowledge hoped to demonstrate Hebrew’s mimetic power and the vitality of newly created Jewish research institutions. They also hoped that the encyclopedias would be an essential tool in shaping and reshaping Zionist national culture and nurturing an ideal national persona. Thus, the printed pages of the encyclopedias...
The success of fascist and communist regimes has long been explained by their ability to turn political ideology into a type of religion. These innovative essays explore the notion that all forms of modern mass-politics, including democracies, need a form of sacralization to function.
This book shows how knowledge about China became part of European general knowledge. It examines English, French, and German encyclopaedias published between 1700 and 1850 and explores the use and presentation of information on China in works of general knowledge. The first chapters explore the origins of early European perceptions of China until 1850, the development of European encyclopaedias, and the sources used for entries on China. The second major part of the book examines the ways in which encyclopaedias presented information on things Chinese (geography, government, economy, history, language and literature, arts and sciences) and how this information was shaped, expanded, perpetuated, revised, and updated.
The history of the Russian fascist movement in Harbin, Manchuria during the 1930s has become increasingly relevant to our understanding of modern Russia. As a railway junction and an important centre of the Jewish Diaspora, the city of Harbin became a focus of Russian emigration to Manchuria in the early 1930s, partly because of its proximity to the resource-rich Manchurian plains. In this multicultural and cosmopolitan setting the first Russian fascist groups were established. Based on an analysis of Russian civil society, Fascism in Manchuria sheds light on the impact of the newly-founded All-Russian Fascist Party on the Russian emigre community, employing the concept of 'dark' civil socie...