Stepping onto the Firestone rubber plantation in Liberia, the largest contiguous rubber plantation in the world at 185 square miles, is a step into the past — though which past or which historical moment is debatable. The “plantation,” as it’s officially referred to by Firestone, is at once reminiscent of American chattel slavery, nineteenth-century company towns, and the old Western colonies of Africa. Most of the eight thousand workers and their families live on the plantation in Firestone-pro