About this book:

"Railways and Rubber: Colonial Infrastructure and the Making of Modern Central Africa" explores how colonial ambitions to extract resources fundamentally reshaped Central Africa from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. The book argues that infrastructure, specifically railways, river ports, and rubber plantations, served as the scaffolding for an extractive economy. These projects violently reordered landscapes, labor systems, and legal frameworks, connecting the region to global markets at immense human and environmental cost.

The narrative details the progression from early European mapping and the "idea" of railways as arteries of empire, to the brutal implementation of these projects. The book extensively covers the coercive labor systems, notably the "red rubber" regime, which relied on taxation, forced recruitment, and extreme violence to mobilize African bodies for infrastructure construction and resource extraction. It also examines the development of plantations as a form of "infrastructure" in their own right, involving scientific management of imported *Hevea* rubber trees and the discipline of a new, regulated workforce.

Beyond the physical construction, the book delves into the profound social and environmental transformations. It explores the imposition of European time discipline, the gendered nature of labor with women sustaining survival economies, and the devastating impact of tropical diseases exacerbated by poor living conditions in labor camps. The text also highlights the often-unacknowledged African expertise—technicians, tinkers, and local guides—who were indispensable to the functioning of the colonial system. It traces the shifts from raw extraction to late colonial developmentalism, the impact of the World Wars and economic depressions, and how these forces contributed to the rise of anticolonial movements and the eventual decolonization.

Finally, the book examines the complex and enduring legacies of this colonial infrastructure. It reveals how the established "logistics corridors" continue to shape contemporary economic development and resource extraction, often perpetuating old patterns of dependency. It also explores how these transformed landscapes are now sites for modern conservation efforts and how the memory of forced labor and infrastructural transformation remains a potent force in Central African societies, influencing current challenges and aspirations.

What You'll Find Inside:

• Railways functioned as dual systems of transportation and labor control, reordering Central African landscapes through coerced work regimes and ecological transformation while connecting resource extraction to global markets.
• The book traces the evolution of rubber extraction from brutal 'red rubber' violence to institutionalized plantation labor, revealing how shifting forms of coercion enabled colonial profit generation.
• Colonial infrastructure displaced and redirected sophisticated precolonial mobility networks (rivers, roads, caravans), imposing new spatial and temporal orders that served imperial economic interests.
• African expertise and agency were central to colonial infrastructure's functioning, from technical adaptation and everyday resistance to women's survival economies that sustained the wage labor system.
• The enduring legacies of colonial transport corridors continue to shape contemporary Central Africa's economic geography, conservation efforts, and social memory long after independence.

Who's It For:

This book is essential reading for graduate students and scholars specializing in African history, colonial studies, and environmental history. It will particularly benefit researchers examining the intersection of economic exploitation, labor coercion, and ecological transformation in colonial contexts. Development practitioners and policymakers working on contemporary African infrastructure will find valuable historical insights into the persistent legacies shaping regional development patterns.