Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World

Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World
by Peter Chapman

Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World
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Book Summary Information

Author: Peter Chapman
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-01-21
ISBN: 1841958816
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Canongate U.S.

Book Reviews of Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World

Book Review: Waste of a Fascinating Topic
Summary: 3 Stars

Fortunately for readers, two books were published about Bananas within months of each other at the end of 2007 / beginning of 2008.

Steer clear of this one.

The story of the Banana - and United Fruit's dominant role in the creation of 'Banana Republics' - is fascinating, so even Chapman's best efforts to push away the reader fall short, but I'd recommend Koeppel's book if you're interested in the tale of this not so simple fruit. Chapman's limpid, tongue-in-cheek-but-not-funny prose ruins the main effort here and renders his frequent tangential excursions (which run the gamut from United Fruit Killed JFK conspiracy to United Fruit Caused Americans to Be Fat implication) irritating at best. He summarizes too many of the most interesting episodes of United Fruit history and doesn't bother to discuss what efforts, if any, are being made to identify/create a replacement for the Cavendish. Instead, we're treated to his cursory explication of the evils of multi-national companies (for which, he argues, United Fruit was the trendsetter/model).

I'm not sure about you, but I like my non-fiction served with a bit more fact and a lot less bland admonishment.

Summary of Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World

“If you only read a handful of nonfiction books this year, [Bananas!] is among your recommended five portions.” —The Observer

In this gripping exploration of corporate manuevering and subterfuge, Peter Chapman shows how the importer United Fruit set the precedent for the institutionalized power and influence of today's multinational companies. Bananas! is a sharp and lively account of the rise and fall of this infamous company, arguably the most controversial global corporation ever – from the jungles of Costa Rica to the dramatic suicide of its CEO, who leapt from an office on the forty-fourth floor of the Pan Am building in New York City. From the marketing of the banana as the first fast food, to the company’s involvement in an invasion of Honduras, the Bay of Pigs crisis, and a bloody coup in Guatemala, Chapman weaves a dramatic tale of big business, political deceit, and outright violence to show how one company wreaked havoc in the “banana republics” of Central America, and how terrifyingly similar the age of United Fruit is to our age of rapid globalization.

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