Rubber and the Making of Vietnam: An Ecological History, 1897–1975

Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges

by Michitake Aso

Dating back to the nineteenth-century transplantation of a latex-producing tree from the Amazon to Southeast Asia, rubber production has wrought monumental changes worldwide. During a turbulent Vietnamese past, rubber transcended capitalism and socialism, colonization and decolonization, becoming a key commodity around which life and history have revolved. In this pathbreaking study, Michitake Aso narrates how rubber plantations came to dominate the material and symbolic landscape of Vietnam and its neighbors, structuring the region's environment of conflict and violence. Tracing the stories of agronomists, medical doctors, laborers, and leaders of independence movements, Aso demonstrates how postcolonial socialist visions of agriculture and medicine were informed by their colonial and capitalist predecessors in important ways. As rubber cultivation funded infrastructural improvements and the creation of a skilled labor force, private and state-run plantations became landscapes of oppression, resistance, and modernity.

Synthesizing archival material in English, French, and Vietnamese, Aso uses rubber plantations as a lens to examine the entanglements of nature, culture, and politics and demonstrates how the demand for rubber has impacted nearly a century of war and, at best, uneasy peace in Vietnam.

Genres: Politics, Ecology

426 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2018

About the author

Mitch Aso is an Assistant Professor of the Global Environment. Before arriving at the University at Albany, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National University of Singapore.

Reviews

[Rob Keenan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book. Sometimes about rubber, sometimes about Vietnam but mostly about rubber IN Vietnam.
Keep an eye out for my official review in the International Review of Social History, some time in early 2020.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be an interesting read on a topic so essential to understanding the modern socioeconomic “scars” of Southeast Asia, but so often and tragically overlooked.

I recommend reading Part III (Rubber Wars) first, after reading the introduction, so you can acquire the contextualization of the importance of rubber as a global, geopolitical commodity, then go on to tackle the former sections of the book. Also, if anyone wants to chastise me for the order I read books: I am rubber, and you are glue.

[Hiepsihattao · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quyển sách đi rất chi tiết vào lịch sử cây cao su ở Việt Nam nhưng hơi "quá" với người chưa hiểu biết nhiều về lĩnh vực này, đồng thời cách dẫn chuyện cảm giác không được liền mạch, dẫn tới rất khó đọc và ghi nhớ được
Tuy nhiên về mặt tài liệu tham khảo và trích dẫn thì rất đáng nể

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent contribution, environment and society as a way to get at nationalist history. Great series too.