Rob Verger

I have a new story out in today’s Boston Globe– it’s a review of a book by Jordan Goodman about human rights in the Amazon called “The Devil and Mr. Casement.”

Here are the first few paragraphs of the piece:

In the Putumayo region of Peru in the early 20th century, collecting latex from the wild Hevea brasiliensis tree was a cruel, nasty business: The Peruvian Amazon Co., the chief regional exporter of rubber, used Indians as slave labor.

In 1910, after word of atrocities committed against the indigenous people reached London, the British Foreign Office sent Sir Roger Casement, their consul general in Rio de Janeiro, into the area to investigate. It would prove a fateful decision for Britain, the rubber company, and for Casement, an Irishman who, six years later, would be executed by the British government.

This is the story told in “The Devil and Mr. Casement,’’ written with detail and care by British historian Jordan Goodman. The book recounts a period of brutal corporate greed in the resource-rich Amazon, with Casement as its main character.

Click here to continue reading. Or, see the story as a JPG.