Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

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Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 1,182 ratings · 249 reviews

A gripping biological detective story that uncovers the myth, mystery, and endangered fate of the world's most humble fruit

To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprising...more

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published December 27th 2007 by Hudson Street Press (first published 2007)

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Community Reviews

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Mar 11, 2011 Kay rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: food_wine, garden-botany, south_america, commodity_history, nonfiction

Bananas on Bennies

I’m a big fan of “commodity histories” -- books on how everyday objects and products have become interwoven into our daily lives. It's odd that while many educated Americans know the year the Titanic sank, for example, scarcely any of them know the provenance of the items on their breakfast table – the coffee in their cup or the banana sliced onto their cornflakes. And this is a shame, really, for it’s quotidian details as much as major events that shape our lives.

It turns o...more

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Jan 04, 2009 Sarah Jane rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: foodie-is-a-stupid-word, non-fiction, social-political, sustenance

Do you ever get to the middle of a book and think to yourself, Why on earth am I reading this? I generally manage to avoid this feeling by choosing my reading material wisely, but this one managed to slip through somehow.

Bananas. Do I care? Sort of.

I found about half of this book to be incredibly interesting. The political implications of banana production, the fact that the banana as we know it may soon cease to exist altogether, a bit of banana history - these are the parts that managed to hol...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Joe rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of the most fascinating books I've read recently.

This book covers the history -- and future! -- of the humble banana. It starts with its beginnings in Asia, its geographic and evolutionary progressing, and the arrival of the banana to America.

Bananas are incredible: the popular ones have no seed, and reproduce asexually. Since they're all genetically identical, they are very susceptible to disease. In fact, today's banana (the Cavendish) wasn't the first popular banana in the US. Tha...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Tom rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: food-and-drink, history, non-fiction

The banana trilogy has been completed. I had previously read Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World and Bananas: An American History, and this book was the favorite of the bunch. It delves a little into the impact of bananas in American culture and how they were marketed like the book by Virginia Scott Jenkins and it covers the geopolitics and corporate influence over the policy of the United States and Latin America as discussed by Peter Chapman. However, the reason this book w...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Indah Threez Lestari rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: in-english, nonfiction

23rd - 2012

Jadi, Saudara-saudara sekalian, pohon pengetahuan yang terlarang di surga itu bukan pohon apel. Tapi pisang. Ulangi kata-kata saya, PI-SANG! Hanya karena kesalahan penerjemahan bibel saja membuat orang awam jadi mengira buah yang menggoda Hawa itu adalah buah apel.

Kalau saja tidak ada kesalahan intrepretasi itu, pasti lagu Anita Sarawak yang populer itu akan berjudul Tragedi Buah Pisang.

Dan buku ini, Saudara-Saudara yang budiman, memang bukan hanya bercerita tentang sejarah pohon dan...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Frederick Bingham rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the story of the banana, the world's favorite fruit. It turns out that the banana we eat every day is called the Cavendish, one of hundreds of varieties of banana, both wild and cultivated. Cavendish bananas are the substitute for another called the Gros Michel. The Gros Michel, wiped out by a fungal epidemic in the 1950's, was a much superior fruit in taste and texture. The Cavendish is now in trouble as well from two diseases, Panama Disease and Black Sigatoka. Panama disease will even...more

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Dec 20, 2011 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

Rating: 3* of five

This is yet another entry in the single-subject world of non-fiction. The narrowness of focus in books such as Salt and Cod and The Book on the Bookshelf and The Pencil and Longitude seems to be an increasingly preevalent trend in publishing. I am all for it on one level, since I like delving into the abstruse and wallowing in details that leave most people I know colder than a penguin's butt in the middle of the Antarctic winter; but on another level, I want to stop these publ...more Rating: 3* of five

This is yet another entry in the single-subject world of non-fiction. The narrowness of focus in books such as Salt and Cod and The Book on the Bookshelf and The Pencil and Longitude seems to be an increasingly preevalent trend in publishing. I am all for it on one level, since I like delving into the abstruse and wallowing in details that leave most people I know colder than a penguin's butt in the middle of the Antarctic winter; but on another level, I want to stop these publishers before they bore again with books inadequately edited and organized.

There are three pieces to the banana...the history of humanity's first cultivated plant (modern evidence from New Guinea shows human cultivation from 9000 years ago was of bananas, but for their corms not the fingers we eat today); the politics of the modern cultivation of the banana (the term "banana republic", which I have used without thinking for 30+ years, has a very literal beginning and a scarily modern ring); and the future of humankind's most basic and widely distributed food crop (essential to survival in several parts of the world, the banana is also under threat from several pests that defy modern chemistry to abate, still less conquer, and squeamish food-o-phobes in wealthy countries oppose all modern genetic engineering that could save the survival crop of many parts of the world). These three strands are awkwardly interwoven, with no obvious guiding editorial hand to make sense of their interrelation.

It's a shame, too, because this is a huge, important topic, and the author's not inconsiderable talents are well-used in bringing the facts to light. The loss of our American favorite banana, the Cavendish, from grocery shelves will be an inconvenience at most; the fact that two major American corporations are, double-handedly (is that a word?), responsible for the spread of the blights that threaten the world crop with the complicity of the American government, should mean that we as a country are liable to find solutions to the pressing problems of food security in the places we've so screwed over. Free. But that won't happen, you can bet on that.

Back to the book...too much narrative drive is lost in the author's back-and-forth cross-cutting of the basic story. I wish someone had said, "Yo Dan...first third of the book is the banana as a plant; second third is the politics of the banana; last is the science of the plant." I wonder if that was what they tried, and the interconnections of all the information prevented its success? I somehow don't think so.

It's a good-enough book on an important topic that SHOULD cause each person who reads it some discomfort at our societal callousness and myopia. I recommend it to those most likely to be irritated by progressive politics and social liberalism. Isolationists particularly encouraged to apply! (less)

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Nov 29, 2011 Maduck831 rated it 4 of 5 stars

“Boston Fruit was the first of four names the endeavor would adopt. Today, it is known as Chiquita.” (55) “The public knew little about events like the 1912 U.S. invasion of Honduras, which granted United Fruit broad rights to build railroads and grow bananas in the country. They weren’t aware that in 1918 alone, U.S. military forces put down banana workers’ strikes in Panama, Colombia, and Guatemala.” (64) “The banana was one of the first convenience foods. It fit nicely into the brown bags and...more “Boston Fruit was the first of four names the endeavor would adopt. Today, it is known as Chiquita.” (55) “The public knew little about events like the 1912 U.S. invasion of Honduras, which granted United Fruit broad rights to build railroads and grow bananas in the country. They weren’t aware that in 1918 alone, U.S. military forces put down banana workers’ strikes in Panama, Colombia, and Guatemala.” (64) “The banana was one of the first convenience foods. It fit nicely into the brown bags and lunchpails of a rapidly urbanizing America. The fruit was agreeable to just about everyone, from infants to old folks.” (64-5) “MacArthur asked. “Do I show first the banana peel, then the fat lady approaching, then she slips? Or do I show the fat lady first, then the banana peel, and then she slips?” Chaplin’s answer: “Neither. You show the fat lady approaching,” he said. “Then you show the banana peel; then you show the fat lady and the banana peel together; then she steps OVER the banana peel and disappears down a manhole.” (67) “Minor C. Keith had become so powerful that he was called by many “the uncrowned king of Central America.” (75) “As he had throughout the early stages of the crisis, U.S. ambassador Caffery reported the events to his superiors in Washington. The tone and language of the memo are beyond chilling. They are a clear a manifestation of terrible indifference as you will ever read: “I have the honor to report,” Caffery wrote, “that the Bogota representative of the United Fruit Company told me yesterday that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded one thousand.” (89) “In his 1928 book, Propoganda, Bernays spelled out his methods: “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?” (126) “(Bernays famously conducted a survey of five thousand doctors, who almost unanimously agreed that people should eat a “hearty breakfast.” He then took the results to newspapers around the country, adding as an aside that bacon and eggs were just such a morning meal. His client was the pork industry.” (126-27) “It wasn’t difficult, in a Washington deep in the throes of McCarthyism, to sell the idea that Arbenz was a Soviet dupe. But at the highest levels, the company didn’t even need pretense. The U.S. secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, had been a partner in United Fruit’s New York law firm. Dulle’s brother, Allen, was head of the CIA and a former member of the banana company’s board. Ed Whitman, United Fruit’s internal PR head, was married to President Eisenhower’s private secretary. Whitman’s contribution to the effort was a film equating the fate of United Fruit whit that of the free world. It was called Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas.” (129) “One witness to the events was a twenty-six-year-old former medical student named Che Guevara. The future revolutionary, living in Guatemala at the time (and making a living reselling religious paintings), was dismayed by what he saw. When “the U.S. invasion took place,” he recalled, “I tried to muster a group of young men like me to fight against the United Fruit adventurers. In Guatemala it was necessary to fight but hardly anybody fought. It was necessary to resist and hardly anybody wanted to do that.” (131) (Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952- 54 by Nick Cullather) “Though the Bush connection has never been confirmed, when the planned operation did go through, two of the boats reportedly used were named Barbara (Bush’s wife) and Houston, the future president’s adopted hometown. Some of the other vessels used in the failed 1961 operation, which became known as the Bay of Pigs invasion after the public learned about it, were owned by United Fruit, on loan from the Great White Fleet. The banana giant’s motive, allegedly, was anger over Castro’s takeover of the island’s banana plantations.)” (170) “Genetic transformation,” Rony Swennen says, “is revolution, not evolution.” (213) “The bottom line,” says Swennen, “is that bananas need biotechnology.” That’s especially true for the Cavendish. “I don’t see any other way to save it.” (217) “Chiquita’s lawyers and lobbyists argued that the European regulations were both unfair and illegal under World Trade Organization rules, a case of government policy mandating preferential treatment to specific companies in what was supposed to be an open market. Lindner went directly to U.S. officials – at that time, the Clinton administration – and in 1996 the United States lodged an official protest with the agency. The day after Lindner’s meeting with administration officials, the banana mogul donated $500,000 to the Democratic Party.” (221) “Consumers need to insist on fair trade, and governments need to mandate it.” (234) (less)

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Mar 13, 2008 Bobscopatz rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you liked the book "Salt" you will probably find this book just as engrossing. There's more in here about corporate and pan-American politics than I expected on first hearing about the book, and I really enjoyed reading it. The reasons why bananas are threatened with global extinction despite being one of the most successful agricultural crops are fascinating, and chilling.

Koeppel does a great job of simplifying the science and getting right to the heart of the matter.

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Feb 23, 2013 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars

After two trips to Costa Rica and consuming my share of batidos de bananos, I wanted to read a solid natural and political history of the banana’s influence in Central and South America. Dan Koeppel’s book follows a Mark Kurlanksy-esque (a la Cod)model, delivering an environmentally deterministic biography of the fruit.

The sections about the banana’s cultivation and the diseases that threaten commercial and subsistence supplies are the sharpest of the book, and those wanting to understand the sc...more

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Oct 30, 2012 bup rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

Bananas have been coming up in my life a lot lately - I've decided they're the wonder food for biking. A guy at work has been sharing lots of banana factoids. So I'm predisposed to like reading about bananas.

And the first hundred pages or so were really interesting. I had no idea that before 1870, Americans didn't eat bananas at all. Then bananas exploded on the scene faster than Gangnam-style. United Fruits (Chiquita) and Standard Fruits (Dole) were ruthless robber barons that made the era of r...more Bananas have been coming up in my life a lot lately - I've decided they're the wonder food for biking. A guy at work has been sharing lots of banana factoids. So I'm predisposed to like reading about bananas.

And the first hundred pages or so were really interesting. I had no idea that before 1870, Americans didn't eat bananas at all. Then bananas exploded on the scene faster than Gangnam-style. United Fruits (Chiquita) and Standard Fruits (Dole) were ruthless robber barons that made the era of robber barons proud. "Banana Republic" is no misnomer - Central American and Caribbean governments existed at the pleasure of the banana companies. Then, the biggest breed of banana got a disease! That's hugely bad for banana stalks, which are reproduced from cuttings, and are all genetically identical for a particular breed! So the bananas people ate in the 1920's - Gros Michels - are basically extinct! Now our breed (Cavendish!) is facing a similar disease!

Then the next hundred pages were kind of interesting. Before 1870, Americans didn't eat bananas at all. Then bananas exploded on the scene. United Fruits (Chiquita) and Standard Fruits (Dole) were ruthless robber barons that made their eras proud. "Banana Republics" - Central American and Caribbean governments - existed at the pleasure of the banana companies. Then, the biggest breed of banana got a disease. That's hugely bad for banana stalks. So the bananas people ate in the 1920's - Gros Michels - are basically extinct. Now our breed (Cavendish) is facing a similar disease.

Then the last 60 pages were not interesting. Before 1870, Americans didn't eat bananas at all. Then bananas exploded. United Fruits and Standard Fruits were ruthless. "Banana Republics" existed at the pleasure of the banana companies. Then, the biggest breed got a disease. They're gone. Our breed (Cavendish) is facing a similar disease. The last 16 pages were a timeline that went over it all again.

The photos were boring, too, and I suspect were there to pad out the pages.

100 pages crammed into 260, basically. Still, interesting enough.(less)

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Mar 09, 2011 Will Byrnes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, brain-candy

Cruel enemies are stalking the world’s bananas and have been for decades. Who knew? Apparently Dan Koeppel. He has tracked not only the diseases that wiped out the every-day, Gros Michel, banana in the 1930s, but has an eye out for the Panama disease that is wiping out the Cavendish banana, that is, the one that we see today in every supermarket and fruit stand. There is yet another mortal enemy to the banana in the world, called Sigatoka. And the up and coming threat is from a disease called Bu...more Cruel enemies are stalking the world’s bananas and have been for decades. Who knew? Apparently Dan Koeppel. He has tracked not only the diseases that wiped out the every-day, Gros Michel, banana in the 1930s, but has an eye out for the Panama disease that is wiping out the Cavendish banana, that is, the one that we see today in every supermarket and fruit stand. There is yet another mortal enemy to the banana in the world, called Sigatoka. And the up and coming threat is from a disease called Bunchy Top, which sounds more like a character from Sesame Street, or Carrot Top’s heftier cousin, than a lethal virus. No one knows what effect it might have on our ability to add some slices of the world’s favorite fruit and fourth largest crop to our morning cereal.

There is a lot to learn about the impact of the banana on the world. And I would bet that all, or surely most of it, is in this book. Banana was a fun, educational and often surprising read. There is a lot of information to take in, and while you may know some of the info here, it is certain that there is a bunch you do not. Did you know that the banana tree isn’t properly a tree, but a very large herb? Neither did I. Or that the bananas we eat are considered berries? Say it ain’t so.

How about the notion that the banana was the fruit referred to in ancient texts about the Garden of Eden. The climate in the Fertile Crescent was not conducive to apples. And there is some softness in the translations of ancient writings. The forbidden fruit was called a fig, which is also what the banana was called. And really, doesn’t it seem a more fitting shape for the job? Which makes it all the more ironic that bananas are essentially asexual. They do not breed. The fruit we eat today came from cloned plants. Mass-consumption bananas have always come from plants that do not propagate themselves, but require man’s intervention.

There is a hybrid grown in Asia that is high in beta carotene, promising an easier way to get vitamin A into picky children. Koeppel even traces the linguistic trail of the banana as it made its way around the world, noting similarities in local names for the fruit in diverse languages.

He peels back the layers of time to reveal the banana’s place in history. Latin America is prime here, with many tales of corrupt agricultural corporations, such as United Fruit (now Chiquita) and their machinations against local governments. He also points out that many technological advances arose from the need to transport this perishable product long distances in a short time.

So you get the idea, lots of info about something most of us never gave, well, a fig about. It is a fun read and you will find yourself saying (or thinking, if you don’t want to make the person next to you on the subway slowly edge away) “I did not know that.” Given that there are existential threats abroad to the common banana, and that we are not yet ready with a cross-bred version that is resistant to those threats, we should probably do what we can to appreciate the banana before it…um…splits.
(less)

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Jul 23, 2011 Adam Wiggins rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Entertaining history of the banana's checkered past. Banana's are the world's #1 most popular fruit (far outstripping apples), and even more notable because they are all genetically identical (today: the Cavandish, prior to 1950, the Gros Michael). It's quite remarkable that bananas are cheaper than apples, considering that bananas are a highly perishable fruit that only grows in tropical regions and has to be shipped in at great speed in refrigerated vessels.

United Fruit and Standard Fruit (tod...more

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Jan 11, 2010 Jhames rated it 4 of 5 stars

The history of food is far more interesting to me than my required history classes in high school and college. I was taken aback by how much I enjoyed "Salt" and I've been told the book about lobsters is equally fascinating. "Banana" is no exception.

I never gave much thought to the history of bananas and, after having read this book, I'm grateful for the information Dan Koeppel provided in his book.

I did take exception, however, to his choice of words when presenting his historical timeline: Ame...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Tabasco rated it 4 of 5 stars

I loved looking at history through banana-colored lenses. Dan Koeppel did a really nice work here. He did a lot of research, went around the world to interview experts, and managed to write a book that focuses on the history and science of the banana. The book kept my interest quite high from beginning to end. The structure / organization is not linear at all, it would be best visualized with a firework explosion, but in a sense it works even better this way: it's like sitting down in a pub with...more I loved looking at history through banana-colored lenses. Dan Koeppel did a really nice work here. He did a lot of research, went around the world to interview experts, and managed to write a book that focuses on the history and science of the banana. The book kept my interest quite high from beginning to end. The structure / organization is not linear at all, it would be best visualized with a firework explosion, but in a sense it works even better this way: it's like sitting down in a pub with one of the top experts on bananas, getting him completely drunk, and listening to him rant away. The result is a "narrative" that jumps around, gets distracted, goes back, has sudden moments of humor and unexpectedly moving paragraphs, but it all kind of fits together nicely. I really liked it that way. Despite the large amount of facts and trivia, the book is a light read.

The author tried to infuse this work with an overarching drama, which is "a banana blight that is tearing through banana crops worldwide". This is a fact, however there seem to be some solutions in place, and at least several alternatives. In any case, some chapters end with sentences like "this is why the banana you eat today might be the last of its kind you eat. Ever!". Hilarious! But please, go on! Bring us another one of whatever this guy is drinking!!

Koeppel spent many chapters on the history of United Fruit, the modern Chiquita. I knew it was a history of violent colonialism, but I didn't know to what extent. The history of the "banana republics" of Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, etc. is fascinating, dark and disturbing. Guatemala in particular, with the CIA-orchestrated conspiracy / coup that was very much related to United Fruit and bananas.

One minor flaw: the focus seems to be almost entirely on American bananas and their history, only a little bit on South-East Asia, and almost nothing on Africa. The book would have been more complete if it expanded a bit more on Africa and what the fruit meant for African history, too.

In the end, the author recommends us to buy fair trade bananas, to help plantation workers, and he gives us a bit more background, without pushing that agenda too much.(less)

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Feb 18, 2009 Flissy rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People curious about food.

Shelves: 2009

I'll start right off by saying that I don't think this was a particularly well written book. Koeppel started off with this anecdotal story about why he thought that the actual fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis story) was actually a banana. Not that I really care or have an opinion about what kind of fruit it was, but the slapdash introduction to the book did not give me a positive impression about Koeppel's power of research. In spite of this, it was a rather fascinating book! I am now f...more

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Jan 15, 2009 Dennis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Kept My Attention - 5
Well-written - 5
Must Read - 3
Important - 3
Accessible - 5

Through this very interesting story of the banana, one learns also of revolutions, arguments for genetic engineering and, of course, fascinating details of the banana. The timeline at the end of the book is great to go through as a review--once you've first read the whole book.

In this sterile fruit, reproduction is scarce, making it difficult to naturally evolve. Get this: "one seed for every ten thousand bananas. One p...more

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Mar 02, 2010 Eric rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: food

This is a really disappointing book. It got lots of glowing reviews, but I was consistently frustrated by it. It is poorly written, sloppily researched, randomly organized, simplistically argued. The book's most egregious fault is that it hints at interesting and important ideas on the biological, political, economic, and social impact of the rise of the banana industry, but the author never bothers to develop these. There are lots of interesting tidbits and suggestive ideas, but they never amou...more

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Oct 23, 2010 Bill Ward rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: geeky-history, history

My reaction to this is mixed. I was really interested in learning about the horticultural story behind the banana, but there was an awful lot about the Chiquita and Dole companies, and the various people who ran them over the years, that was not terribly interesting to me. It was saddening to read about all the strongarm "banana republic" tactics that the companies used - I had been vaguely aware of that history but not of all the details. I found it really interesting that a few decades ago, th...more

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Jul 25, 2010 Nicole rated it 3 of 5 stars

This kept me interested, but not every aspect of it was satisfying.

The bulk of the historical and political discussion, from the introduction of bananas in the US until the 1980s, was, I thought, reasonably well-done (although not always linear). However, the prehistoric information was superficial, the mention of Eden unnecessary and poorly integrated, and the information about current practices of the various companies - the part that would have been useful to us in making consumer decisions...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Ruka rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: "foodies," history nerds, fans of "The Omnivore's Dilemma"

Shelves: history-current-events-polysci

Like the companies that spearheaded its worldwide distribution, the banana has a complicated history. Inherently sterile, it's all but dependent upon humans for production; at the same time, it's such a completely ubiquitous staple for so many people that its removal almost guarantees disaster. Koeppel's brisk timeline from the Garden of Eden to today's brink of extinction slogs a bit into political storytelling at times, but the tales of the lengths corporations will go to secure the immediate...more

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Jun 10, 2008 Chad rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a very accesible and enjoyable read about the checkered history, perplexing science and dirty politics of the banana.

Great gift for the bananaphile in you life.

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Feb 23, 2009 Dawn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Fascinating nonfiction natural/social/political history book about how a fruit we mindlessly cut up into our cornflakes has so profoundly affected the politics and geography of the planet, and the race to save the single viable commercial variety from near-certain extinction. Having read this book, the timing is right to read "One Hundred Years of Solitude," given to me by my former sister-in-law after having one of those "I can't believe you haven't read [fill in the blank:]" conversations. ("S...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Patrick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a good companion piece to Open Veins of Latin America, which I read just a couple of months ago. This book is an easy read about the ubiquitous fruit; it's a combination of little-known facts, some history, some comparative religion (mostly scriptural translation), and some science. I'm not so keen on the science stuff, but I was fascinated (due to reading Open Veins) by the history of United Fruit and the various machinations of diplomats, businessmen, and mercenaries to keep the b...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Michela rated it 4 of 5 stars

I came across this book several times in the public library, and every time my thought was exactly the same,
"How the hell can bananas be interesting enough for an entire book?"
Every time I came across it again (small library)
"There's that damn banana book again. Fuck you, banana book. Stop clogging up my shelf."
Finally one day I took the Banana Book Dare. I took it home to read it.
"Okay, banana book. She me whatcha got. Justify your pages."
I stand corrected. It was fascinating. I only wish I ha...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: latin-america, micro-histories, food-and-agriculture, nonfiction

As far as microhistories go, I thought this one was pretty decent and really explored all of the aspects of the development and globalization of a seemingly quotidian crop. I found a couple of things that were only half-truths ('Because of bananas, Uganda is a peaceful nation'...'the banana companies are the ones who messed up Central America' when in reality it was messed up long before they added their fuel to the fire....etc.), but for the most part the whole sordid story was pretty accurate....more

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Apr 03, 2008 Alyce rated it 4 of 5 stars

Who knew the banana could be so interesting?

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Jun 01, 2011 Anna K rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book covers a lot of very interesting material. However it would have benefited from more diligent editing. This book could have easily lost 25% of length and still covered the same interesting material relative to the history, politics and science of the commercial banana breeding. The rambling nature of the book was often difficult to follow and made the read less riveting than it could have been. Overall, however, it's worth reading and considering the role the banana plays and will cont...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Doris rated it 3 of 5 stars

I may never look at a banana the same way. I may never regard big business and the U.S. government in the same way (at least historically). Their united collusion in over throwing governments, displacing citizens, murder, and even effective genocide was stunning reading.

Other than memoir, I'm not a big reader of non fiction or history. I'm assuming his facts are straight.
Too bad if they are.

I was surprised at how well it held my interest, at least until the last three chapters when I put it asi...more

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May 12, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arts-and-historical

To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. Rich cultural lore surrounds the fruit: In ancient translations of the Bible, the 'apple' consumed by Eve is actually a banana (it makes sense, doesn't it?). Entire Cen...more

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title link	preview: Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1260005.Banana?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347331337l/1260005.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1260005.Banana?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel[/url]

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Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

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