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| Author: Peter Chapman
Publisher: Canongate U.S.
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy New: $14.59
You Save: $9.41 (39%)
New (36) Used (15) from $14.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 52299
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 1841958816
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.7634772098
EAN: 9781841958811
ASIN: 1841958816
Publication Date: January 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 History in a banana peel March 11, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I wholeheartedly agree with Nunn in his/her review of the book, and very much disagree with Pasta. I lived in Latin America for 17 years and the book was like deja vu. I especially loved the way that Mr. Chapman tied all the links together. A lot of things that I had a hunch about suddenly made a lot of sense! It is a very "readable" book as my high school students will attest to. It enabled them to see globalization through a different lens. Hopefully, some college professors will include it on their courses. A very worthwhile read that makes for very interesting comment and discussion.
 Bigtime bananas March 9, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The book has a wealth of information on the amazing story of bananas, delivered in a brisk, almost punchy, style. But somehow the author does not instill confidence in the reader that he has much depth of understanding. It's the style probably. And he moves along so briskly, with no primary documents mentioned, and somehow the whole document seems to be poorly anchored in sources. It's just too breezy, and also too loaded with trivia, all jumbled together. I would have liked more about the biology of the banana. He never discusses why it is sterile, no mention of its triploidy. A very small book for the price too. Disappointing.
 Check Your Facts March 7, 2008
2 out of 13 found this review helpful
This would be far better book if Mr. Chapman would have taken the time to get his facts correct. See pages 120 and 126 for two obvious ones. There are a lot more. In point of fact this could be a good drinking game; find an error, take a drink.
Save your money. I wish I had!
Chapman's Excellent Expose February 23, 2008
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Peter Chapman follows his excellent Goalkeepers History of Britain with Bananas, a fascinating history of the United Fruit Company, one of the world's first true "multi-nationals". He brings his experiences as a long-time Central America reporter for the BBC and The Guardian to bear in a revealing expose of power and greed gone wild. Chapman takes us from the early days of the development of the banana from a tropical oddity, to its spread throughout the Caribbean into Central America. Along the way, we meet a variety of characters, who expanded United Fruit Company and economically conquered Central America. Over the past 130 years or so, UFC pioneered business and corporate models that became the basis for multinationals and our present festering globalization.
I can remember teachers and professors trumpeting against the excesses of the United Fruit Company and "banana republics" back in the 1960 and 70s. Chapman details the long and tawdry road of corruption and malfeasance that UFC used to bully its opponents, both in the business and political worlds. Among the cast of characters are Boston Brahmins like the Cabots and the Lodges, the "upstart" Russian Jewish immigrant Sam Zemurray, both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and even Carmen Miranda and her animated descendant, Chiquita Banana. Along the way, we watch how UFC influenced US policy toward Latin America, from Gunboat Diplomacy, to the Good Neighbor Policy to Jimmy Carter's Human Rights to Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra shenanigans. It is a story that mirrors the bigger flow of American foreign policy over the past century.
Of special interest in light of the War in Iraq is Chapman's reporting of the CIA/UFC manipulated coup d'etat in Guatemala in 1954. Managed with certitude by an uneducated, anti-communist, boob of a diplomat--Ambassador Jack Peurifoy--it featured contrived incidents, faked battle scenes, and propaganda aimed at both a Commie-fearing America and a pre-industrial Mayan populace. Of course, this putsch went the way United Fruit and the anti-communist Eisenhower administration hoped for. Many of the same simplistic machinations that worked so well in a less complicated setting, now seem to have caught up with us in the Middle East. The world has adapted to disingenuous and ham-fisted American tactics, but sadly the Bush administration is still using them.
I first read this book in England last summer and am delighted at the book's arrival in the American marketplace. I highly recommend it to those interested in history, or contemporary politics and economics.
Absolute must read for any globalization skeptics, pessimists, and the like February 15, 2008
11 out of 15 found this review helpful
Chapman's BANANAS! is a must must read, especially for anyone desiring to learn more about the history behind globalization, U.S. backed multi (or rather uni-)nationals, and presumably (in my opinion) the catalyst to the U.S. embargo in Cuba that exists to this day. Let this be a warning (more for those not already well-versed in United Fruit Company history): the book may make you go bananas over its revealing content. But what is more fun about reading this book is Champan's attention to detail as he writes in a manner that could make for a dark comedy. Will it make it on to U.S. University reading lists, I'm pessimistic, but it should (as the previous reviewer suggests).
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