The fish that ate the whale
Subtitle: the amazing life and momentous times of America's banana king
By: Rich Cohen
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: hardcover
Number of pages: 270
ISBN-13: 9780374299279
Copyright date: 2012
Subjects: Jewish businesspeople; Banana trade; United Fruit Company; Biography; History
First sentence: Sam Zemurray spoke with no accent, except when he swore, which was all the time.
Description: When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, banana hauler, dockside hustler, and plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures. Starting with nothing but a cart of freckled bananas, he built a sprawling empire of banana cowboys, mercenary soldiers, Honduran peasants, CIA agents, and American statesmen. -- Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-270).
Table of contents: title: Green: Selma; title: Ripes; title: The fruit jobber; title: Brown to green; title: Bananas don't grow on trees; title: The octopus; title: New Orleans; title: Yellow: The isthmus; title: To the Collins; title: Revolutin'!; title: To the isthmus and back; title: The banana war; title: Ripe: King fish; title: The fish that ate the whale; title: Los Pericos; title: Bananas go to war; title: Israel is real; title: Operation success; title: Backlash; title: Brown: What remains; title: Bay of Pigs; title: The earth eats the fish that ate the whale; title: Fastest way to the street; title: Epilogue.