The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.52 (716 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0143114611 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 432 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-03-30 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
He worked for twelve years as an investigative reporter for the Virginian-Pilot, covering criminal justice and death row. . Joe Jackson is the author of one novel and four nonfiction titles, including Leavenworth Train, which was a finalist for the 2002 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime
The amazing tale of one of history's most daring acts of biopiracy-and how it changed history In this thrilling real-life account of bravery, greed, obsession, and ultimate betrayal, award- winning writer Joe Jackson brings to life the story of fortune hunter Henry Wickham and his collaboration with the empire that fueled, then abandoned him. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds-and the history-making consequences-is the stuff of legend. The Thief at the End of the World is an exciting true story of reckless courage and ambition that perfectly captures the essential nature of Great Britain's colonial adventure in South America.. In 1876, Wickham smuggled 70,000 rubber tree seeds out of the rainforests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England's most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens
In a finely crafted narrative, Jackson shows how Wickham embarked on his adult life hoping to become an explorer-writer but abandoned his travels in ia for the lure of wild rubber. --Gilbert Taylor . Explaining that those seeds became the genetic root of the British Empire’s domination of world rubber production in the early twentieth century, Jackson’s comparison of that result with its origin in one eccentric’s activity in the back-of-beyond yields a fascinating tale. From Booklist Featuring a strange adventurer and a revolution in the production of rubber, Jackson’s tale takes readers to the hypnotic heart of the in the 1870s. However, Wickham’s name redounds through botanical and industrial history as the man who absconded fro
"An epic about rubber and its history" according to Denis Benchimol Minev. Rubber would not at first seem like such an exciting product. However, the history of it, from La Condamine's first samples brought from the Amazon to France to the momentous steal of seeds by Wickham (main character of the book) to Kew Gardens and later to Malaysia, is a truly outstanding saga of what would today be known as biopiracy but was at the time simply the obligation to serve the British crown.The economic collapse left behind by rubber in the Amazon is coupled with the progress brought upon the British colonies in southeast Asia. The book contemplates the history of why rubber (along with coal and st. Notta Chan said Holding my interest?. Joe Jackson may have put his heart and soul into this book, but personally I found it offered too much detail. While perhaps historically correct, I felt as though I was swamped with detail, that some readers may find interesting, and a lack of enthusiasm that requires a reader to want to read the next page. There may not have been a way that Mr. Jackson could have written this book to make it more interesting, but . The romance and excitement of--RUBBER? Miles D. Moore Tires, pencil erasers, shoe soles--rubber is so ubiquitous now that everyone takes it for granted. Joe Jackson, in his superb book, "The Thief at the End of the World," takes us back to the last half of the nineteenth century, when rubber--its unique and extraordinary properties just starting to be recognized--was so valuable that nations were prepared to kill or die for it. Jackson tells the story of rubber through the life story of one of the rubber industry's pivotal figures: Henry Wickham, Victorian dreamer, adventurer, and nature artist, whose 1876 theft of 70,000 Hevea Brasiliensis seeds from the Amazon j