Rubber: The Social and Natural History of an Indispensable Substance
Westland Books , 2025 · 298 pages
ISBN: 978-93-60455-87-3
It started with a simple question: Where does all the rubber from worn car tires go? What followed was a journey through time, continents, and the hidden life of an extraordinary material.
In Rubber, Vidya Rajan traces the story of a substance the Aztecs and Mayas regarded as cosmically significant — one that later fueled bitter patent wars, enabled some of the most brutal colonial exploitation in the Amazon and the Congo, and today quietly underpins virtually every aspect of modern life, from the tires on your car to the gloves in a hospital operating room.
Drawing on her background as a biologist and naturalist, Rajan also explores how rubber came to exist at all: the ancient evolutionary arms race between plants producing latex and the animals trying to eat them — and what that struggle reveals about the natural world we inhabit.
Awards
- Winner, AutHer Non-Fiction, 2026 — Women AutHer Awards (JK Paper & The Times of India), Season 7. Awarded at a ceremony in New Delhi, 22 March 2026.
In the Press
- Interview — FrontList: an in-depth conversation about the book’s origins and themes
- Excerpt — ThePrint: on the patent wars behind India Rubber
- The Sandip Roy Show (podcast) — October 2025
- Goodreads
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Reviews
- “The Social Journey of Rubber” — The Hindu Business Line