Empire of Rubber

Firestone’s Scramble for Land and Power in Liberia

By: Gregg Mitman

Narrated by: Amir Abdullah

Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

In the early 1920s, Americans owned eighty percent of the world's automobiles and consumed seventy-five percent of the world's rubber. But only one percent of the world's rubber grew under the US flag, creating a bottleneck that hampered the nation's 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 America's rubber empire. Historian and filmmaker Gregg Mitman scoured remote archives to unearth a history of promises unfulfilled for the vast numbers of Liberians who toiled on rubber plantations built on taken land. Mitman reveals a history of racial segregation and medical experimentation that reflected Jim Crow America—on African soil. As Firestone reaped fortunes, wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a few elites, fostering widespread inequalities that fed unrest, rebellions and, eventually, civil war.

A riveting narrative of ecology and disease, of commerce and science, and of racial politics and political maneuvering, Empire of Rubber uncovers the hidden story of a corporate empire whose tentacles reach into the present.

©2021 Gregg Mitman (P)2022 Tantor

History of Liberia

An essential part of Liberia’s History that has been concealed by the paternalistic, power greedy, and capitalistic Western Culture/World.

A very important piece of Black History. A must read/listen to book.

Directionless book, Horribly read. Everyone’s a racist except the author.

Just a horrible book, read like a child’s puppet-show. I actually paid money to listen to this book. Shame on the editor for not giving the author guidance. Shame on the publisher for not putting limits on the insistence that everyone is racist. The book lacks actual direction. And that’s the problem. After listening to this audiobook it is clear that the author went into this hoping to stir up some racist controversy but he just went on some tangent of how horrible each person he spoke about was. Firestone was racist. The black Africans were racist against poor Africans. Poor Africans hated the US blacks from Harvard. The white workers were racist. Some weren’t racist. The white lady who was in awe of Liberian art moved there and promoted the culture (!), and then the author throws her under the bus by insisting that she profited by making pottery with African designs: once again, a racist imperialist act. The author was in shock that African workers earned less than American workers(?),….. uh? Ok brother. Just a bad book. In one chapter he accuses the Liberians of taking away tribal lands illegally to rent to Firestone (as per the historical account). Then several chapters later he accuses Firestone of “stealing indigenous lands”? Did you not read your own book? A racist insinuation around every corner. Directionless historical account of racist blather during a period of time. Greedy whites and greedy elitist Africans destroying tribal lands because everyone is racist. Everyone takes a turn looking like a racist in this book. Not literature:(