John Tully
Interview with John Tully, author of The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber
Why, of all possible commodities, did you choose to write a book on rubber? “It started with direct experience of a rubber factory: namely working on a major overhaul of the Banbury internal mixer at the old Goodyear tire factory in suburban Melbourne. Before that, like most people, I hadn’t given much thought to it. Of course, when I was a small kid it was fascinating stuff, but after that it might as well have been invisible for all the attention I paid to it. Working on the Banbury made me think about it again and it became clear upon reflection that it was a pretty crucial commodity.”… | more |
The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber
Capital, as Marx once wrote, comes into the world “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” He might well have been describing the long, grim history of rubber. From the early stages of primitive accumulation to the heights of the industrial revolution and beyond, rubber is one of a handful of commodities that has played a crucial role in shaping the modern world, and yet, as John Tully shows in this remarkable book, laboring people around the globe have every reason to regard it as “the devil’s milk.” All the advancements made possible by rubber—industrial machinery, telegraph technology, medical equipment, countless consumer goods—have occurred against a backdrop of seemingly endless exploitation, conquest, slavery, and war. But Tully is quick to remind us that the vast terrain of rubber production has always been a site of struggle, and that the oppressed who toil closest to “the devil’s milk” in all its forms have never accepted their immiseration without a fight.… | more |