Combining socialist political analysis, Marxist historical perspective and a focus on the ecological consequences of international corporation's quest for profits and power in the exploitation of this essential resource, this interesting volume presents a complex social history of rubber. Tully, a lecturer in politics and history at Victoria University, Melbourne, proceeds chronologically, examining traditional and indigenous uses of rubber, colonial exploitation of raw materials, rubber in the industrial boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, agribusiness and imperialism and rubber in the Second World War, including discussions of I G Farben and their slave labor synthetic rubber factory at Auschwitz and U.S. corporations as part of the military-industrial complex supplying the allied forces. The work is well researched and includes several black and white photographs. Annotation 2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
