Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World

by Peter Chapman

Overview

In this compelling history, Peter Chapman shows how the United Fruit Company took bananas from the jungles of Costa Rica to the halls of power in Washington, D.C., with not just clever marketing, but covert CIA operations, bloody coups and brutalised workforces. And how along the way they turned the banana into a blueprint for a new model of unfettered global capitalism: one that serves corporate power at any cost.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847671943
Publisher:	Canongate U.S.
Publication date:	07/08/2009
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Peter Chapman is a journalist and writer, and a former BBC foreign correspondent in South America. He works for the Financial Times as an editor and writer, and lives in London.

Table of Contents

List of Characters xi

1 From the Memory of Men 1

2 Lament for a Dying Fruit 13

3 Roots of Empire 25

4 Monopoly 43

5 The Banana Man 59

6 Taming the Enclave 75

7 Banana Republics 95

8 On the Inside 113

9 Coup 127

10 'Betrayal' 143

11 Decline and Fall 159

12 Old and Dark Forces 173

Epilogue: United Fruit World 191

Select Bibliography 209

Index 213

Editorial Reviews

If you only read a handful of non-fiction books this year, [Bananas] is among your recommended five portions

Observer

The term banana republic has become so divested of meaning that it's been adopted by a mid-range clothing chain. Its sobering reality is spelled out in this clear, dryly witty account of United Fruit

Metro M D

Excellent, darkly humorous expose

Herald

A fast-paced and shocking romp through the pioneer spirit of globalisation

MARK THOMAS

A powerful example from the past . . . a century-long tale of plunder, bribery, corruption, labour abuse, death squads, military coups and war

Financial Times

A gripping story of the ebbs and flows of US capitalism

Guardian

[An] insightful history of the company . . . [A] witty, energetic narrative

New York Times Book Review

A tale of corporate skulduggery, an irreversible lesson in agricultural folly and a musing on the banana's place on our collective palate . . . An impressive indictment of a deeply flawed corporation

The Nation

Any tinpot regime these days tends to get called a banana republic. We have to remember they were real, vicious and bloody regimes set up and toppled at the behest of US fruit companies. Those corporations gave globalisation a bad name before we even used the term, and Peter Chapman's racy but erudite read constantly makes you wonder how much has changed

New Scientist

Engagingly told . . . Delightful cameos of Carmen Miranda, Andy Warhol and Evelyn Waugh . . . Best is Chapman's account of the precarious ecology of the modern banana

Independent Whig.

Finely crafted . . . Chapman's broad-brush approach to history gives it a vigorous and entertaining narrative drive . . . Chapman's achievement is to make us realise what a long and complex moral journey even something as seemingly innocent as a banana has made to our fruit bowls

Guardian - Mark Cocker