The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man's Battle for Human Rights in South America's Heart of Darkness

By Jordan Goodman

Book Overview

THE STORY OF AN IMPERIAL TRAGEDY THAT SENT SHOCKWAVES AROUND THE WORLD In September 1910, the activist Roger Casement arrived in the Amazon jungle on a mission for the British government: to investigate reports of widespread human-rights abuses in the forests along the Putumayo River. Accusations against the Peruvian rubber baron Julio C?sar Arana had been making their way back to London, and the rumors were on everybody's lips: Arana was enslaving, torturing, and murdering the local Indians. Arana's Peruvian Amazon Company, with its headquarters in London's financial heart, was responsible. Casement was outraged by what he uncovered: nearly 30,000 Indians had died to produce 4,000 tons of rubber. When Casement's 700-page report of the violence was published in London in 1912, it set off reverberations throughout the world. People were appalled that murderous acts were being carried out under the cloak of British respectability. The Peruvian Amazon Company was forced into liquidation, and its board of directors was publicly shamed. From the Amazonian rain forests to the streets of London and Washington, D.C., Jordan Goodman recounts a tragedy whose exposure in 1912 drew back the curtain on exploitation and the wholesale abuse of human rights. Drawing on a wealth of original research, The Devil and Mr. Casement is a haunting story of modern capitalism with enormous contemporary political resonance.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374138400
• ISBN13: 9780374138400
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.2" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Rubber Devil

In //The Devil and Mr. Casement//, Jordan Goodman takes up the tragic story of Roger Casement, the Irishman knighted in 1911 for his exposure of human rights abuses in the rubber trade, only to be executed in 1916 by the British government for his part in the Irish Uprising. While Casement's investigation into the abuses of Belgian-owned Congolese rubber plantations is well known, his role documenting the abuse, torture, and murder of indigenous Peruvian Indians by a British-owned rubber company is less known, and the focus of Goodman's book. The "devil" in Goodman's title is Julio César Arana, the Peruvian rubber baron who screened his evil doings behind a British firm. But Goodman's narrative focuses more on Casement, who came to believe that the Irish had a special duty to liberate those colonized and oppressed by British imperialism - a belief that subsequently led to his downfall. Goodman's decision to minimize Casement's homosexuality, and its role in his trial for treason and sodomy, is problematic, giving a limited perspective to this complex man. Despite its narrow focus, this is a significant work of history, suspenseful and accessible to the general reader. Reviewed by Catherine Hollis

excellent read, great story telling

I enjoy this type of book: a very informative, historical episode but written in a very easy to read and enjoyable narrative. It personally takes me a good 30 pages to get into a book, so once it got past the initial background, it was hard to put down. It is a very suspenseful read which I think is difficult to do with the slow paced nature of the investigations and commissions, and hearings, etc. I was not familiar with the subject matter and it really kept me guessing right until the very end. The author does not delve into detail about Casement's life or character but you still get a wonderful sense of him. I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot.