Rein Taagepera
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199287741
- eISBN:
- 9780191713408
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199287741.003.0013
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
The more important levels have fewer positions, and the share of minorities goes down. The law of minority attrition is a quantitatively predictive logical model that expresses it more precisely. A ...
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The more important levels have fewer positions, and the share of minorities goes down. The law of minority attrition is a quantitatively predictive logical model that expresses it more precisely. A party with a small share of seats gets an even smaller share of seats, and the precise figure depends on assembly size and the total number of voters. The law of minority attrition might also help determine which part of the ‘rubber ceiling’ on women's advancement is natural and which part is socially imposed.Less
The more important levels have fewer positions, and the share of minorities goes down. The law of minority attrition is a quantitatively predictive logical model that expresses it more precisely. A party with a small share of seats gets an even smaller share of seats, and the precise figure depends on assembly size and the total number of voters. The law of minority attrition might also help determine which part of the ‘rubber ceiling’ on women's advancement is natural and which part is socially imposed.
Nicholas P. Money
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195189711
- eISBN:
- 9780199790265
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189711.003.0005
- Subject:
- Biology, Microbiology
The leaf blight of rubber caused by the fungus, Microcyclus ulei, bankrupted the infamous “rubber barons” of South America in the 19th century, destroyed the economy of boom towns along the Amazon, ...
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The leaf blight of rubber caused by the fungus, Microcyclus ulei, bankrupted the infamous “rubber barons” of South America in the 19th century, destroyed the economy of boom towns along the Amazon, and drove some of the investors to suicide. Today, the same disease threatens the annual production of nine million tons of natural rubber that is tapped from trees in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The rubber that is grown in Southeast Asia derives from seeds that were collected in Brazil in the 1870s by Henry Wickham. For this reason, the crop lacks genetic diversity, making it especially vulnerable to the leaf blight.Less
The leaf blight of rubber caused by the fungus, Microcyclus ulei, bankrupted the infamous “rubber barons” of South America in the 19th century, destroyed the economy of boom towns along the Amazon, and drove some of the investors to suicide. Today, the same disease threatens the annual production of nine million tons of natural rubber that is tapped from trees in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The rubber that is grown in Southeast Asia derives from seeds that were collected in Brazil in the 1870s by Henry Wickham. For this reason, the crop lacks genetic diversity, making it especially vulnerable to the leaf blight.
Richard P. Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520220874
- eISBN:
- 9780520923812
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520220874.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter is concerned with the rubber industry. It reveals that rubber can be commercially grown either on vast one-crop plantations or as the primary cash-earning commodity on multicrop ...
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This chapter is concerned with the rubber industry. It reveals that rubber can be commercially grown either on vast one-crop plantations or as the primary cash-earning commodity on multicrop smallholder farms. The next few sections identify the various sources of rubber and study the search of explorers in the Amazon for the Hevea brasiliensis and the harvesting of Amazonian jungle rubber. These are followed by a discussion on the American rubber corporations on Sumatra as well as the rubber plantations that spread in North Sumatra. The search for alternative sources of supply is examined, which took rubber corporations to the Philippines, Chiapas, Liberia, and Amazonia. Finally, the chapter discusses synthetic rubber, natural rubber groves, the rubber industry in Indonesia, and Harvey Firestone's rubber plantations in Liberia.Less
This chapter is concerned with the rubber industry. It reveals that rubber can be commercially grown either on vast one-crop plantations or as the primary cash-earning commodity on multicrop smallholder farms. The next few sections identify the various sources of rubber and study the search of explorers in the Amazon for the Hevea brasiliensis and the harvesting of Amazonian jungle rubber. These are followed by a discussion on the American rubber corporations on Sumatra as well as the rubber plantations that spread in North Sumatra. The search for alternative sources of supply is examined, which took rubber corporations to the Philippines, Chiapas, Liberia, and Amazonia. Finally, the chapter discusses synthetic rubber, natural rubber groves, the rubber industry in Indonesia, and Harvey Firestone's rubber plantations in Liberia.
R. T. Deam and S. F. Edwards
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198528531
- eISBN:
- 9780191713415
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528531.003.0018
- Subject:
- Physics, Theoretical, Computational, and Statistical Physics
This chapter reprints a paper which attempts to improve upon several weaknesses in the classical theories of rubber elasticity. It develops a formulation of the statistical thermodynamics of ...
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This chapter reprints a paper which attempts to improve upon several weaknesses in the classical theories of rubber elasticity. It develops a formulation of the statistical thermodynamics of amorphous materials analogous to the Gibbs formalism for conventional statistical mechanics. This then permits the replacement of ‘phantom chains’, i.e., long polymer molecules with the fictitious property that they experience no forces except at cross link points and are transparent to one another, by realistic molecules which do experience forces and which can become entangled. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section demonstrates that just as Gibbs's famous formula provides an abstract formula for the statistical mechanics of systems in which all states are accessible, the new formula extends to systems with frozen-in degrees of freedom. The second section shows how the formalism fits the problem of rubber elasticity. In the third section, the effect of excluded volume, i.e., of short-range forces, is included in the calculation of the free energy of a rubber, while in fourth section, the effects of entanglements are included to complete the kinds of force normally encountered.Less
This chapter reprints a paper which attempts to improve upon several weaknesses in the classical theories of rubber elasticity. It develops a formulation of the statistical thermodynamics of amorphous materials analogous to the Gibbs formalism for conventional statistical mechanics. This then permits the replacement of ‘phantom chains’, i.e., long polymer molecules with the fictitious property that they experience no forces except at cross link points and are transparent to one another, by realistic molecules which do experience forces and which can become entangled. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section demonstrates that just as Gibbs's famous formula provides an abstract formula for the statistical mechanics of systems in which all states are accessible, the new formula extends to systems with frozen-in degrees of freedom. The second section shows how the formalism fits the problem of rubber elasticity. In the third section, the effect of excluded volume, i.e., of short-range forces, is included in the calculation of the free energy of a rubber, while in fourth section, the effects of entanglements are included to complete the kinds of force normally encountered.
Paul M. Goldbart and Nigel Goldenfeld
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198528531
- eISBN:
- 9780191713415
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528531.003.0019
- Subject:
- Physics, Theoretical, Computational, and Statistical Physics
The statistical mechanics of cross-linked macromolecules requires simultaneous treatment of random polymer configurations, excluded-volume interactions, and the quenched disorder of the cross-links, ...
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The statistical mechanics of cross-linked macromolecules requires simultaneous treatment of random polymer configurations, excluded-volume interactions, and the quenched disorder of the cross-links, as well as the topological constraints imposed by impenetrable chains. Such a description was pioneered by Deam and Edwards. This work is reviewed and a discussion presented of subsequent efforts to understand the unique elastic properties of networks as well as the critical phenomena of the vulcanization transition.Less
The statistical mechanics of cross-linked macromolecules requires simultaneous treatment of random polymer configurations, excluded-volume interactions, and the quenched disorder of the cross-links, as well as the topological constraints imposed by impenetrable chains. Such a description was pioneered by Deam and Edwards. This work is reviewed and a discussion presented of subsequent efforts to understand the unique elastic properties of networks as well as the critical phenomena of the vulcanization transition.
Sir Geoffrey Allen and F.R.S. F.R. Eng.
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198528531
- eISBN:
- 9780191713415
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528531.003.0029
- Subject:
- Physics, Theoretical, Computational, and Statistical Physics
This chapter describes the history of Sam Edwards within polymer physics from the early days of his exposure, through his insights in seeing what is important, bringing key new insights, inspiring ...
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This chapter describes the history of Sam Edwards within polymer physics from the early days of his exposure, through his insights in seeing what is important, bringing key new insights, inspiring new types of experiment, and developing new theoretical methods, as well as his influence on industry and government alike.Less
This chapter describes the history of Sam Edwards within polymer physics from the early days of his exposure, through his insights in seeing what is important, bringing key new insights, inspiring new types of experiment, and developing new theoretical methods, as well as his influence on industry and government alike.
Parks M. Coble
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520232686
- eISBN:
- 9780520928299
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520232686.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter describes the experiences of the rubber industry in China during the Sino-Japanese War. It discusses the specific experiences of the Da Zhonghua Rubber Company and the Zhengtai Rubber ...
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This chapter describes the experiences of the rubber industry in China during the Sino-Japanese War. It discusses the specific experiences of the Da Zhonghua Rubber Company and the Zhengtai Rubber Company. The chapter explains that while the nascent rubber industry survived in the Shanghai area, Da Zhonghua and Zhengtai ultimately had to collaborate with the Japanese after December 1941 in order to remain in production. Most rubber manufacturers demonstrated a willingness to work with the Japanese military but a strong reluctance to surrender control of their enterprises to a Japanese business partner.Less
This chapter describes the experiences of the rubber industry in China during the Sino-Japanese War. It discusses the specific experiences of the Da Zhonghua Rubber Company and the Zhengtai Rubber Company. The chapter explains that while the nascent rubber industry survived in the Shanghai area, Da Zhonghua and Zhengtai ultimately had to collaborate with the Japanese after December 1941 in order to remain in production. Most rubber manufacturers demonstrated a willingness to work with the Japanese military but a strong reluctance to surrender control of their enterprises to a Japanese business partner.
Harold Holzer and Frank J. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823232260
- eISBN:
- 9780823240784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823232260.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter explores the iconography of Lincoln's death. It shows how artists of the day portrayed—and routinely exaggerated—the scene inside the small boarding house bedroom to which the president ...
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This chapter explores the iconography of Lincoln's death. It shows how artists of the day portrayed—and routinely exaggerated—the scene inside the small boarding house bedroom to which the president was carried to die after he was shot across the street at Ford's Theatre. Anxious to know and remember precisely how their president had breathed his last, Americans eagerly purchased these interpretations, however wildly exaggerated. For artists depicting the scene, the death supplied a grand opportunity to memorialize a great historical event (and sell pictures). As one after another of them worked to include more and more bedside mourners, the death chamber expanded to host them—creating a phenomenon modern historians now describe as the “rubber room.” And thus the supposed grandeur of Lincoln's rather plain final surroundings became enshrined in American memory.Less
This chapter explores the iconography of Lincoln's death. It shows how artists of the day portrayed—and routinely exaggerated—the scene inside the small boarding house bedroom to which the president was carried to die after he was shot across the street at Ford's Theatre. Anxious to know and remember precisely how their president had breathed his last, Americans eagerly purchased these interpretations, however wildly exaggerated. For artists depicting the scene, the death supplied a grand opportunity to memorialize a great historical event (and sell pictures). As one after another of them worked to include more and more bedside mourners, the death chamber expanded to host them—creating a phenomenon modern historians now describe as the “rubber room.” And thus the supposed grandeur of Lincoln's rather plain final surroundings became enshrined in American memory.
Michitake Aso
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469637150
- eISBN:
- 9781469637174
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469637150.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
How can a single tree species affect human projects on the scale of empires and nations? Rubber and the Making of Vietnam explores this question for the rubber tree in Vietnamese history. Dating back ...
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How can a single tree species affect human projects on the scale of empires and nations? Rubber and the Making of Vietnam explores this question for the rubber tree in Vietnamese history. 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 has transcended capitalism and socialism, colonization and decolonization, becoming a key commodity around which life and history have flowed. Synthesizing archival material in English, French, and Vietnamese, this book narrates how rubber trees came to dominate the material and symbolic landscape of French Indochina and postcolonial Vietnam, structuring the region’s environments of agriculture, health, and violence. Once established, private and state-run plantations became landscapes of oppression, resistance, and modernity. Agronomists, medical doctors, laborers, and leaders of independence movements form part of this narrative as they struggled over various visions of labor in nature and the nature of labor. Mosquitoes and plasmodia also play a part in this narrative as they helped spread malaria among Vietnamese who planted and tended rubber trees. Rather than a human-centered past, this book adopts an ecological perspective as it tells twentieth-century Vietnamese history starting with the view from a rubber tree and branching outwards in multiple directions. In other words, this book taps the rubber tree to examine the entanglements of nature, culture, and politics and demonstrates how the demand for rubber has impacted nearly a century of war and peace in Vietnamese society.Less
How can a single tree species affect human projects on the scale of empires and nations? Rubber and the Making of Vietnam explores this question for the rubber tree in Vietnamese history. 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 has transcended capitalism and socialism, colonization and decolonization, becoming a key commodity around which life and history have flowed. Synthesizing archival material in English, French, and Vietnamese, this book narrates how rubber trees came to dominate the material and symbolic landscape of French Indochina and postcolonial Vietnam, structuring the region’s environments of agriculture, health, and violence. Once established, private and state-run plantations became landscapes of oppression, resistance, and modernity. Agronomists, medical doctors, laborers, and leaders of independence movements form part of this narrative as they struggled over various visions of labor in nature and the nature of labor. Mosquitoes and plasmodia also play a part in this narrative as they helped spread malaria among Vietnamese who planted and tended rubber trees. Rather than a human-centered past, this book adopts an ecological perspective as it tells twentieth-century Vietnamese history starting with the view from a rubber tree and branching outwards in multiple directions. In other words, this book taps the rubber tree to examine the entanglements of nature, culture, and politics and demonstrates how the demand for rubber has impacted nearly a century of war and peace in Vietnamese society.
C. Michael Roland
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199571574
- eISBN:
- 9780191728976
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571574.001.0001
- Subject:
- Physics, Condensed Matter Physics / Materials
This book describes the relaxation dynamics of rubbery materials, with the objective of providing a molecular basis for many physical properties. As the term comprises any amorphous, flexible ...
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This book describes the relaxation dynamics of rubbery materials, with the objective of providing a molecular basis for many physical properties. As the term comprises any amorphous, flexible macromolecule above its glass-transition temperature, rubber includes a broad class of substances, with a richness of behavior rivaled by few materials. The focus is mainly on the phenomenology, emphasizing anomalies and aspects that are incompletely understood and thus productive avenues for future research. Rubber is especially interesting because it has unique properties. It can exist in a state of equilibrium, unlike glassy or semicrystalline plastics, thermosetting resins, fibers, etc. These polymers have path-dependent morphologies and process-specific properties, which frustrate scientific inquiry, notwithstanding their practical utility. Among all materials only rubber exhibits high elasticity—the ability to recover from very large deformations. This property underlies most applications of elastomers and gave rise to its own field of study. Despite these singular characteristics, rubber is arguably the prototype for relaxation in soft matter. By copolymerizing different monomers, an enormous variety of chemical structures are available that, along with the ease of avoiding crystallization, makes make rubber ideal for the study of the glass transition, a major unsolved problem in condensed-matter physics. In the glassy state or when vitrification is imminent, polymers cannot easily be distinguished from molecular liquids, and the correspondence of many phenomena makes distinctions between molecular and polymeric liquids artificial. Accordingly, the scope of this book is not limited to polymer science, with the discussion often extending to small-molecule compounds, including simple liquids and liquid crystals.Less
This book describes the relaxation dynamics of rubbery materials, with the objective of providing a molecular basis for many physical properties. As the term comprises any amorphous, flexible macromolecule above its glass-transition temperature, rubber includes a broad class of substances, with a richness of behavior rivaled by few materials. The focus is mainly on the phenomenology, emphasizing anomalies and aspects that are incompletely understood and thus productive avenues for future research. Rubber is especially interesting because it has unique properties. It can exist in a state of equilibrium, unlike glassy or semicrystalline plastics, thermosetting resins, fibers, etc. These polymers have path-dependent morphologies and process-specific properties, which frustrate scientific inquiry, notwithstanding their practical utility. Among all materials only rubber exhibits high elasticity—the ability to recover from very large deformations. This property underlies most applications of elastomers and gave rise to its own field of study. Despite these singular characteristics, rubber is arguably the prototype for relaxation in soft matter. By copolymerizing different monomers, an enormous variety of chemical structures are available that, along with the ease of avoiding crystallization, makes make rubber ideal for the study of the glass transition, a major unsolved problem in condensed-matter physics. In the glassy state or when vitrification is imminent, polymers cannot easily be distinguished from molecular liquids, and the correspondence of many phenomena makes distinctions between molecular and polymeric liquids artificial. Accordingly, the scope of this book is not limited to polymer science, with the discussion often extending to small-molecule compounds, including simple liquids and liquid crystals.
David R. Bush
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037448
- eISBN:
- 9780813042305
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037448.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Military History
There was no standard treatment for prisoners-of-war (POW) during the American Civil War by either the Union or the Confederacy. Each side struggled with the incarceration and civilized treatment of ...
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There was no standard treatment for prisoners-of-war (POW) during the American Civil War by either the Union or the Confederacy. Each side struggled with the incarceration and civilized treatment of former citizens captured and utilized various types of facilities for housing prisoners. The Johnson's Island Civil War Prison was designed by the Union as a stand-alone facility to house both officers and enlisted men in a humane yet practical manner, and over 10,000 Confederate officers were taken there between April 1862 and September 1865. Their stay could be as short as several weeks to over two years. This book is the story of one prisoner, Wesley Makely, as he struggled with all the unknowns associated with surviving imprisonment. Letters written between Wesley, and Kate, his wife, chronicled his drive for survival. The recovery of archaeological materials and other historical accounts provide an in-depth context for their dialogue. This concentration of Confederate officers, representing the finest and most educated the South had to offer, provides a rich historical record and the very diverse cultural material assemblage used in the interpretation of these letters. The in-depth study of Wes Makely's experiences at Johnson's Island provides an understanding of how imprisonment affects the incarcerated and how each individual attempts to cope with the loss of freedom in unique ways. Finally, the inhumanity that plagued POW treatment during the U.S. Civil War, justified by retaliatory or revengeful acts and viewed from this individual account, is challenged in the final chapter.Less
There was no standard treatment for prisoners-of-war (POW) during the American Civil War by either the Union or the Confederacy. Each side struggled with the incarceration and civilized treatment of former citizens captured and utilized various types of facilities for housing prisoners. The Johnson's Island Civil War Prison was designed by the Union as a stand-alone facility to house both officers and enlisted men in a humane yet practical manner, and over 10,000 Confederate officers were taken there between April 1862 and September 1865. Their stay could be as short as several weeks to over two years. This book is the story of one prisoner, Wesley Makely, as he struggled with all the unknowns associated with surviving imprisonment. Letters written between Wesley, and Kate, his wife, chronicled his drive for survival. The recovery of archaeological materials and other historical accounts provide an in-depth context for their dialogue. This concentration of Confederate officers, representing the finest and most educated the South had to offer, provides a rich historical record and the very diverse cultural material assemblage used in the interpretation of these letters. The in-depth study of Wes Makely's experiences at Johnson's Island provides an understanding of how imprisonment affects the incarcerated and how each individual attempts to cope with the loss of freedom in unique ways. Finally, the inhumanity that plagued POW treatment during the U.S. Civil War, justified by retaliatory or revengeful acts and viewed from this individual account, is challenged in the final chapter.
Oscar de la Torre
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469643243
- eISBN:
- 9781469643267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643243.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
The first part of the chapter analyzes the different paths by which slaves acquired environmental knowledge: importing skills and strategies from equatorial Africa, acquiring knowledge when doing ...
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The first part of the chapter analyzes the different paths by which slaves acquired environmental knowledge: importing skills and strategies from equatorial Africa, acquiring knowledge when doing agricultural work in plantations and farms, and maintaining interethnic contacts with Indians. As they learned the ways of local peasants, the enslaved gradually built entire parallel economies with vigorous ties to the expanding network of commercial houses that existed in late nineteenth-century Amazonia. Instead of using the term “internal economy of slavery,” I conceptualize them as an economy that ran parallel to that of their masters, given the size and complexity of the commercial networks in which the slaves participated. The chapter also describes the process of community formation inside the slave quarters at the time of Amazonia’s rubber boom, which had both a positive and negative impact on the prospects of Amazonia’s black slaves. On the one hand, it made it possible for them to expand their parallel economy. On the other hand, that slaves could carry out such a broad scope of activities meant that the slaveowners could adapt to the changes of the era. In Amazonia slavery was just like rubber: flexible and adaptable to multiple conditions – hence its durability.Less
The first part of the chapter analyzes the different paths by which slaves acquired environmental knowledge: importing skills and strategies from equatorial Africa, acquiring knowledge when doing agricultural work in plantations and farms, and maintaining interethnic contacts with Indians. As they learned the ways of local peasants, the enslaved gradually built entire parallel economies with vigorous ties to the expanding network of commercial houses that existed in late nineteenth-century Amazonia. Instead of using the term “internal economy of slavery,” I conceptualize them as an economy that ran parallel to that of their masters, given the size and complexity of the commercial networks in which the slaves participated. The chapter also describes the process of community formation inside the slave quarters at the time of Amazonia’s rubber boom, which had both a positive and negative impact on the prospects of Amazonia’s black slaves. On the one hand, it made it possible for them to expand their parallel economy. On the other hand, that slaves could carry out such a broad scope of activities meant that the slaveowners could adapt to the changes of the era. In Amazonia slavery was just like rubber: flexible and adaptable to multiple conditions – hence its durability.
Richard Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520220874
- eISBN:
- 9780520923812
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520220874.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In the late 1800s American entrepreneurs became participants in the 400-year history of European economic and ecological hegemony in the tropics. Beginning as buyers in the tropical ports of the ...
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In the late 1800s American entrepreneurs became participants in the 400-year history of European economic and ecological hegemony in the tropics. Beginning as buyers in the tropical ports of the Atlantic and Pacific, they evolved into land speculators, controlling and managing the areas where tropical crops were grown for carefully fostered consumer markets at home. As corporate agro-industry emerged, the speculators took direct control of the ecological destinies of many tropical lands. Supported by the U.S. government's diplomatic and military protection, they migrated and built private empires in the Caribbean, Central and South America, the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and West Africa. Yankee investors and plantation managers mobilized engineers, agronomists, and loggers to undertake what they called the “Conquest of the Tropics,” claiming to bring civilization to benighted peoples and cultivation to unproductive nature. In competitive cooperation with local landed and political elites, they not only cleared natural forests, but also displaced multicrop tribal and peasant lands with monocrop export plantations rooted in private property regimes. This book is a rich history of the transformation of the tropics in modern times, pointing ultimately to the declining biodiversity that has resulted from the domestication of widely varied natural systems. The book graphically illustrates the study with six major crops, each a virtual empire in itself—sugar, bananas, coffee, rubber, beef, and timber. It concludes that as long as corporate-dominated free trade is ascendant, paying little heed to its long-term ecological consequences, the health of the tropical world is gravely endangered.Less
In the late 1800s American entrepreneurs became participants in the 400-year history of European economic and ecological hegemony in the tropics. Beginning as buyers in the tropical ports of the Atlantic and Pacific, they evolved into land speculators, controlling and managing the areas where tropical crops were grown for carefully fostered consumer markets at home. As corporate agro-industry emerged, the speculators took direct control of the ecological destinies of many tropical lands. Supported by the U.S. government's diplomatic and military protection, they migrated and built private empires in the Caribbean, Central and South America, the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and West Africa. Yankee investors and plantation managers mobilized engineers, agronomists, and loggers to undertake what they called the “Conquest of the Tropics,” claiming to bring civilization to benighted peoples and cultivation to unproductive nature. In competitive cooperation with local landed and political elites, they not only cleared natural forests, but also displaced multicrop tribal and peasant lands with monocrop export plantations rooted in private property regimes. This book is a rich history of the transformation of the tropics in modern times, pointing ultimately to the declining biodiversity that has resulted from the domestication of widely varied natural systems. The book graphically illustrates the study with six major crops, each a virtual empire in itself—sugar, bananas, coffee, rubber, beef, and timber. It concludes that as long as corporate-dominated free trade is ascendant, paying little heed to its long-term ecological consequences, the health of the tropical world is gravely endangered.
David R. Bush
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037448
- eISBN:
- 9780813042305
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037448.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Military History
This chapter explains the rules for sending and receiving mail as a prisoner-of-war. Prisoners were restricted in how much mail they could write and receive. The interaction between Wesley and Kate ...
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This chapter explains the rules for sending and receiving mail as a prisoner-of-war. Prisoners were restricted in how much mail they could write and receive. The interaction between Wesley and Kate is developed by the first letters written. Concerns of health and exchange are introduced and continue as themes throughout the book. Wesley even starts to send Kate “gutta-percha” jewelry made by the prisoners on the island.Less
This chapter explains the rules for sending and receiving mail as a prisoner-of-war. Prisoners were restricted in how much mail they could write and receive. The interaction between Wesley and Kate is developed by the first letters written. Concerns of health and exchange are introduced and continue as themes throughout the book. Wesley even starts to send Kate “gutta-percha” jewelry made by the prisoners on the island.
Nicholas Mee
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198851950
- eISBN:
- 9780191886690
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198851950.003.0022
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
Topology is the study of the most fundamental characteristics of shape—the properties that are unaltered when bodies are stretched, twisted, or otherwise distorted. The London Underground map, ...
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Topology is the study of the most fundamental characteristics of shape—the properties that are unaltered when bodies are stretched, twisted, or otherwise distorted. The London Underground map, originally devised by Harry Beck, is an everyday application of topology. Topology is often described as rubber-sheet geometry. Any two objects that can be transformed into each other by stretching, bending, and twisting are considered to be topologically equivalent as long as no tearing or gluing is required to transform one into the other. Chapter 21 explains topology by looking at some of the surfaces that can be formed by stretching and gluing the edges of a rectangle: the Möbius strip, the Klein bottle, and the torus.Less
Topology is the study of the most fundamental characteristics of shape—the properties that are unaltered when bodies are stretched, twisted, or otherwise distorted. The London Underground map, originally devised by Harry Beck, is an everyday application of topology. Topology is often described as rubber-sheet geometry. Any two objects that can be transformed into each other by stretching, bending, and twisting are considered to be topologically equivalent as long as no tearing or gluing is required to transform one into the other. Chapter 21 explains topology by looking at some of the surfaces that can be formed by stretching and gluing the edges of a rectangle: the Möbius strip, the Klein bottle, and the torus.
C. M. Roland
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199571574
- eISBN:
- 9780191728976
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571574.003.0004
- Subject:
- Physics, Condensed Matter Physics / Materials
The two approaches to analyzing the large strain behavior of rubbery networks are phenomenologically, using strain-energy functions drawn from continuum mechanics, and molecular models, which apply ...
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The two approaches to analyzing the large strain behavior of rubbery networks are phenomenologically, using strain-energy functions drawn from continuum mechanics, and molecular models, which apply statistical mechanics to compute the effect of chain orientation on the entropy. The early rubber elasticity models ignored intermolecular interactions, whereas later developments (‘constraint models’) included the effect of entanglements or steric constraints on the mechanical stress. These constitutive equations for rubber elasticity are compared to experimental results, and the connection of network elasticity to the relaxation behavior is discussed. For conventional elastomers there is a compromise between stiffness and strength. Different methods to circumvent this limitation are described. Examples are given of the properties obtained with novel network architectures, including interpenetrating networks, double networks, bimodal networks, miscible heterogeneous networks, and deswollen networks.Less
The two approaches to analyzing the large strain behavior of rubbery networks are phenomenologically, using strain-energy functions drawn from continuum mechanics, and molecular models, which apply statistical mechanics to compute the effect of chain orientation on the entropy. The early rubber elasticity models ignored intermolecular interactions, whereas later developments (‘constraint models’) included the effect of entanglements or steric constraints on the mechanical stress. These constitutive equations for rubber elasticity are compared to experimental results, and the connection of network elasticity to the relaxation behavior is discussed. For conventional elastomers there is a compromise between stiffness and strength. Different methods to circumvent this limitation are described. Examples are given of the properties obtained with novel network architectures, including interpenetrating networks, double networks, bimodal networks, miscible heterogeneous networks, and deswollen networks.
Leopoldo M. Bernucci
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781786941831
- eISBN:
- 9781789623598
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786941831.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This essay explores the iconic figure of the "rubber baron," during the rubber boom era (1890-1920) in the Amazon. Portrayed by travelers and fiction writer as Janus-faced, the rubber baron can be ...
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This essay explores the iconic figure of the "rubber baron," during the rubber boom era (1890-1920) in the Amazon. Portrayed by travelers and fiction writer as Janus-faced, the rubber baron can be both elegant and brutal. Historical names of Rubber Barons all exemplify the double-sided nature of this type of individual. In this essay the author argues that, mirroring personal and cultural attributes of Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s notion of the "homem cordial”, the rubber baron evades simple characterizations, which makes him a unique social type and a sinister by-product of colonization in Latin America. Liminal in his ability to suspend his brutality, the rubber baron can become a gentleman and then rapidly return to his original barbaric state. This allows him, for example, to traffic between the Amazonian rainforest and Paris with ease, until all his wealth is wasted and he is then forced to return to his rubber estate, once again, to re-build his fortune. Finally, the essay posits that the ambiguous character epitomizes the rubber industry. By wearing different masks the rubber baron conceals from the "civilized world" the horrors of slavery, rape, torture, and mass murder that were perpetrated in Amazonia's hellish gardens of rubber.Less
This essay explores the iconic figure of the "rubber baron," during the rubber boom era (1890-1920) in the Amazon. Portrayed by travelers and fiction writer as Janus-faced, the rubber baron can be both elegant and brutal. Historical names of Rubber Barons all exemplify the double-sided nature of this type of individual. In this essay the author argues that, mirroring personal and cultural attributes of Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s notion of the "homem cordial”, the rubber baron evades simple characterizations, which makes him a unique social type and a sinister by-product of colonization in Latin America. Liminal in his ability to suspend his brutality, the rubber baron can become a gentleman and then rapidly return to his original barbaric state. This allows him, for example, to traffic between the Amazonian rainforest and Paris with ease, until all his wealth is wasted and he is then forced to return to his rubber estate, once again, to re-build his fortune. Finally, the essay posits that the ambiguous character epitomizes the rubber industry. By wearing different masks the rubber baron conceals from the "civilized world" the horrors of slavery, rape, torture, and mass murder that were perpetrated in Amazonia's hellish gardens of rubber.
Hwasook Nam
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501758263
- eISBN:
- 9781501758287
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501758263.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This chapter introduces Kang Churyong and the P'yŏngwŏn Rubber strike, of which she was one of the leaders. This unusual instance of a working-class woman taking a bold action in public and, ...
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This chapter introduces Kang Churyong and the P'yŏngwŏn Rubber strike, of which she was one of the leaders. This unusual instance of a working-class woman taking a bold action in public and, moreover, making “eloquent” (talbyŏn) speeches on heavy-duty subjects such as solidarity of the proletariat (musanja) and the deplorable actions of employers caught media attention, and her story made national news the following day. In this way, a new type of female political actor was born. Indeed, conditions that allowed a factory woman to steer national attention had been in the making since the early 1920s. The chapter situates Pyongyang's rubber industry and its workers in the larger context of colonial industrialization and the colonial labor movement. It also presents the contours of the bourgeois nationalist movement in Pyongyang and how the focal point of the strike, that is, the issue of proper wage levels for women workers, was intertwined with an emerging division among Pyongyang's nationalist elite.Less
This chapter introduces Kang Churyong and the P'yŏngwŏn Rubber strike, of which she was one of the leaders. This unusual instance of a working-class woman taking a bold action in public and, moreover, making “eloquent” (talbyŏn) speeches on heavy-duty subjects such as solidarity of the proletariat (musanja) and the deplorable actions of employers caught media attention, and her story made national news the following day. In this way, a new type of female political actor was born. Indeed, conditions that allowed a factory woman to steer national attention had been in the making since the early 1920s. The chapter situates Pyongyang's rubber industry and its workers in the larger context of colonial industrialization and the colonial labor movement. It also presents the contours of the bourgeois nationalist movement in Pyongyang and how the focal point of the strike, that is, the issue of proper wage levels for women workers, was intertwined with an emerging division among Pyongyang's nationalist elite.
Michitake Aso
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469637150
- eISBN:
- 9781469637174
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469637150.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
The extreme violence brought to bear on the Vietnamese society and environment by the American war machine during the 1960s meant that measures taken by South Vietnamese leaders ended up sustaining ...
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The extreme violence brought to bear on the Vietnamese society and environment by the American war machine during the 1960s meant that measures taken by South Vietnamese leaders ended up sustaining plantation production. Ironically, the communist insurgency also benefited from rubber plantations, which continued to serve as a valuable source of material and recruits. Meanwhile, North Vietnamese rubber experts worked to extend the range of hevea into more northern latitudes so that latex could flow in the socialist world. Chapter 7 extends the history of rubber to 1975 to show the ways that memories of colonialism continued to structure thoughts and behavior regarding rubber, and suggests why human-environment interactions on the plantations of post-1975 socialist Vietnam often resembled those of their colonial predecessors. This chapter focuses on the degree to which colonial discourse as materialized on plantations was subverted by various actors and revisits the historiography of the Vietnam War by adopting the lens of environmental history to show the unexpected consequences of plantation agriculture. Finally, it considers how the post–World War II development of “synthetic” rubber affected the actions of those associated with “natural” rubber plantations.Less
The extreme violence brought to bear on the Vietnamese society and environment by the American war machine during the 1960s meant that measures taken by South Vietnamese leaders ended up sustaining plantation production. Ironically, the communist insurgency also benefited from rubber plantations, which continued to serve as a valuable source of material and recruits. Meanwhile, North Vietnamese rubber experts worked to extend the range of hevea into more northern latitudes so that latex could flow in the socialist world. Chapter 7 extends the history of rubber to 1975 to show the ways that memories of colonialism continued to structure thoughts and behavior regarding rubber, and suggests why human-environment interactions on the plantations of post-1975 socialist Vietnam often resembled those of their colonial predecessors. This chapter focuses on the degree to which colonial discourse as materialized on plantations was subverted by various actors and revisits the historiography of the Vietnam War by adopting the lens of environmental history to show the unexpected consequences of plantation agriculture. Finally, it considers how the post–World War II development of “synthetic” rubber affected the actions of those associated with “natural” rubber plantations.
Seth Garfield
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199755356
- eISBN:
- 9780199345090
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199755356.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This essay analyzes the reframing of the Brazilian Amazon in contemporary international affairs. It explores how the socioeconomic and ecological change unleashed under Brazilian military rule ...
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This essay analyzes the reframing of the Brazilian Amazon in contemporary international affairs. It explores how the socioeconomic and ecological change unleashed under Brazilian military rule (1964-85) and its aftermath collided with the contemporaneous popularization of environmental politics in the Northern Hemispherees to transform public policies and local conflicts in Amazonian forests into new transnational fields. Novel scientific disciplines, technologies, and cultural vocabularies served to remake the Amazon in the popular and political imaginary in the North and in Brazil. Shifting ideologies, in turn, impelled and sustained conservationist initiatives at the local and international level. Yet the contemporary ruckus over the Amazon also represents another node in the forest’s longstanding entanglement with patterns of industrial consumerism and civilizing projects. A comparison of the representations of the Amazon rubber trade from World War II to contemporary green movements offers a revealing study of changes and continuities in outsiders’ attitudes towards the region. In probing how governments have grappled with environmental problems that defy the capabilities of a single nation, this essay uses a historical lens to explore how they came to be perceived that way.Less
This essay analyzes the reframing of the Brazilian Amazon in contemporary international affairs. It explores how the socioeconomic and ecological change unleashed under Brazilian military rule (1964-85) and its aftermath collided with the contemporaneous popularization of environmental politics in the Northern Hemispherees to transform public policies and local conflicts in Amazonian forests into new transnational fields. Novel scientific disciplines, technologies, and cultural vocabularies served to remake the Amazon in the popular and political imaginary in the North and in Brazil. Shifting ideologies, in turn, impelled and sustained conservationist initiatives at the local and international level. Yet the contemporary ruckus over the Amazon also represents another node in the forest’s longstanding entanglement with patterns of industrial consumerism and civilizing projects. A comparison of the representations of the Amazon rubber trade from World War II to contemporary green movements offers a revealing study of changes and continuities in outsiders’ attitudes towards the region. In probing how governments have grappled with environmental problems that defy the capabilities of a single nation, this essay uses a historical lens to explore how they came to be perceived that way.
