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18 - Rubber

from Part IV - Ligaments of Globalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Richard Tucker
Edited by
J. R. McNeill  and
Kenneth Pomeranz
J. R. McNeill
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Kenneth Pomeranz
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Summary

Natural rubber is one of the most significant export crops from the tropics, but since the 1940s rubber has been produced from both natural latex and from petroleum. International markets for rubber expanded rapidly after the late 1880s, led by the newly expanding tire industry. The interior of Amazonia underwent a boom in speculative land sales in the 1890s, as soon as the Brazilian government adopted simplified land registration procedures. Until World War II the American role in changing the face of Southeast Asia was subordinate to the colonial grip of the Dutch and British. But shortly after 1900, Southeast Asian moist forests became one of the major tropical regions which American industrial wealth helped to transform. In contrast to Amazonia, the forests of tropical Africa supported a variety of latex-bearing trees and vines. Synthetic rubber production surpassed natural rubber in 1962 and by 1973 it reached two-thirds of total global rubber production.

Keywords

imperialismChristianityBuddhismtraditional statemodern spiritualitynineteenth-century globalizationreligious nationalismIslam
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History , pp. 423 - 443
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

Further reading

Babcock, Glenn D. History of the United States Rubber Company. Bloomington: Bureau of Business Research, Indiana University, 1966.Google Scholar
Barlow, Colin. The Natural Rubber Industry: Its Development, Technology and Economy in Malaysia. Oxford University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Brookfield, Harold, Potter, Lesley, and Byron, Yvonne. In Place of the Forest: Environmental and Socioeconomic Transformation in Borneo and the Eastern Malay Peninsula. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Davis, Wade. One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.Google Scholar
Dean, Warren. Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber: A Study in Environmental History. Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Eckes, Alfred E. Jr. The United States and the Global Struggle for Minerals. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Finlay, Mark R. Growing American Rubber: Strategic Plants and the Politics of National Security. New Brunswick: Rutgers, 2009.Google Scholar
Gershoni, Yekutiel. Black Colonialism: The Americo-Liberian Scramble for the Hinterland. Boulder: Westview, 1985.Google Scholar
Grandin, Greg. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009.Google Scholar
Graveline, François. Des hévéas et des hommes: l’aventure des plantations Michelin. Paris: Chaudin, 2006.Google Scholar
Grilli, Enzo R., Agostini, Barbara Bennett, and ‘tHooft-Welvaars, Maria J.. The World Rubber Economy: Structure, Changes, and Prospects. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Harms, Robert. “The end of red rubber: a reassessment,” Journal of African History 16/1 (1975), 73–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy. Princeton University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Marshall, Jonathan. To Have and Have Not: Southeast Asian Raw Materials and the Origins of the Pacific War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMillan, James. The Dunlop Story. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1989.Google Scholar
Monson, Jamie. “From commerce to colonization: a history of the rubber trade in the Kilombero Valley of Tanzania, 1890–1914,” African Economic History 21 (1993), 113–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schidrowitz, P. and Dawson, T. R., eds. History of the Rubber Industry. Cambridge: Heffer, 1952.Google Scholar
Slocomb, Margaret. Colons and Coolies: The Development of Cambodia’s Rubber Plantations. Bangkok: White Lotus, 2007.Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann Laura. Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra’s Plantation Belt, 1870–1979. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Tengwall, T. A. “History of rubber cultivation and research in the Netherlands Indies,” in Honig, Pieter and Verdoorn, Frans (eds.), Science and Scientists in the Netherlands Indies. New York: Board for the Netherlands Indies, 1945.Google Scholar
Tucker, Richard P. Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecological Devastation of the Tropical World. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000. Condensed and updated edition Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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  • Rubber
  • Edited by J. R. McNeill, Georgetown University, Washington DC, Kenneth Pomeranz, University of Chicago
  • Book: The Cambridge World History
  • Online publication: 05 May 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316182789.019
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  • Rubber
  • Edited by J. R. McNeill, Georgetown University, Washington DC, Kenneth Pomeranz, University of Chicago
  • Book: The Cambridge World History
  • Online publication: 05 May 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316182789.019
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Rubber
  • Edited by J. R. McNeill, Georgetown University, Washington DC, Kenneth Pomeranz, University of Chicago
  • Book: The Cambridge World History
  • Online publication: 05 May 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316182789.019
Available formats
×