The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire

The author tells a number of fascinating stories as he follows the life of Henry Wickham from childhood through a series of schemes and near-death adventures involving bot fly larvae, fever, nearly chopping off his foot, and endless fruitless attempts to be a planter. Henry's claim to fame was the highpoint of the book, a serendipitous incident with Kew, a ship, and the Hevea seeds. The style is mostly fine, though it's a bit over-written, as when the expressions in a photograph are scrutinized for what they might reveal about thoughts, hopes, feelings. This tendency to try to fill in the facts with humanizing details is a minor annoyance, as are the frequent digressions to establish the scene with global history. Those gripes aside, the author does a delightful job filling an important gap in the history of rubber and plant explorers.