Includes bibliographical references and index. Map on endpapers.
Contents:
"America Should Produce Its Own Rubber" -- Reverse Passage -- Missionaries of Capital -- An American Protectorate? -- Contested Development -- Plantation Lives -- Cold War Concessions.
Summary:
In the early 1920s, Americans owned 80 percent of the worlds automobiles and consumed 75 percent of the worlds rubber. But only one percent of the worlds rubber grew under the U.S. flag, creating a bottleneck that hampered the nations explosive economic expansion. To solve its conundrum, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company turned to a tiny West African nation, Liberia, founded in 1847 as a free Black republic. Empire of Rubber tells a sweeping story of capitalism, racial exploitation, and environmental devastation, as Firestone transformed Liberia into Americas rubber empire.
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