 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | In the vein of the bestselling Salt and Cod, a gripping chronicle of the myth, mystery, and uncertain fate of the world’s most popular fruit
In this fascinating and surprising exploration of the banana’s history, cultural significance, and endangered future, award-winning journalist Dan Koeppel gives readers plenty of food for thought. Fast-paced and highly entertaining, Banana takes us from jungle to supermarket, from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables around the world. We begin in the Garden of Eden—examining scholars’ belief that Eve’s “apple” was actually a banana— and travel to early-twentieth-century Central America, where aptly named “banana republics” rose and fell over the crop, while the companies now known as Chiquita and Dole conquered the marketplace. Koeppel then chronicles the banana’s path to the present, ultimately—and most alarmingly—taking us to banana plantations across the globe that are being destroyed by a fast-moving blight, with no cure in sight—and to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit. |
Average Customer Rating:   Fascinating account of the banana business and one of the world's most popular fruits The author does a fine job with this history of banana-business rivals United Fruit (now Chiquita) and Standard Fruit (now Dole). Interspersed with the details of corporate development are scientific details on the banana, the diseases that afflict it, the people that rely on it, the governments that are (or have been) ruled because of it and the issues it faces.
Something I didn't know before I read this book: Bananas are not grown from seeds. Cuttings are taken from existing banana plants and nurtured into yet more banana plants from which cuttings will eventually be taken et cetera et cetera et cetera.
The book would have benefited tremendously with the addition of more pictures and maps, plus a list of every known banana type and the odds of anyone getting his or her hands on one. Although the author mentions various banana varieties, he typically does not show you what they look like. Color plates of the top bananas (pun intended) along with their region of origin in the caption would have enabled a further grasp of how different some bananas really are from others. That creamy purple Tahitian one is something I'd like to check out. Sounds tasty. Wish I knew what it looked like.
At the end of the book, there is a short timeline of the banana and the people, countries and companies involved with its business or scientific development.
All in all, very interesting and informative. Left me wanting more. As another reviewer complained, by the end of the book, you're really not sure how much longer the currently consumed (yet endangered) supermarket banana (the Cavendish) has before extinction. Maybe no one really knows.
Worth a look if you've ever been curious about the banana. Who knew that the banana is on it's way out? Narrative non-fiction, as a technique, appeals so directly to readers that it can be used to reveal the plight of almost any animal or plant, such as America's favorite fruit, as we find out in Dan Koeppel's, Banana, The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World (Plume, 2008.) Without this book who would know that this popular fruit is in danger of disappearing because of a disease? Koeppel does a great job presenting the overlooked history of a fruit common to our grocery stores and corner markets. Most of the book focuses on the single variety of banana available in North American and European supermarkets, and provides a good overview of different banana varieties used in Africa and Asia as local food staples, and how these varieties are threatened by plant diseases. The book also delves into the historical perspective of "Banana Republics," controlled and manipulated by the powerful banana corporations in the early-mid 20th and 21st Centuries.
Koeppel's book illustrates the value of narrative non-fiction in presenting history and science at street level. As one reader remarked, "I learned more geography and science from this book than I did in high school, though I must say I wasn't the best of students. It proved to me that geography and science can be very interesting if they are put into a form that you understand," or "I picked this up on a lark, having enjoyed another micro history work on cotton. I never imagined I would be so interested in a book on bananas, but just a few pages in and I was hooked. Nice work." Other reviewers had high praise for the book and often were interested in the place in history of the banana and what the future holds.
This is just one more example of the latest trend in contemporary popular science treatises, a trend that we hope continues for a long time.
Chiquita calls in sick A fast-paced, well-researched book that peels back the mystery
and gives you the history. OK ! BANANA is the best of the bunch.
Other books may provide more intimate looks at the machinations of the
big fruit companies, or American interventions in Central America. Still
others may describe the biology of this popular yellow fruit in more
detail. I believe this one combines everything in one easy-to-read package.
It could be the "Beautiful Swimmers" of bananas. I learned a lot, I enjoyed
myself, and every time I closed the book I had this inexplicable desire to
eat a banana ! Rather hasty editing produced a list of 16 factual errors that I was able to detect.
Not being a banana maven (before now), I suspect I might have missed more.
But no worries, Koeppel did not write BANANA by sitting in a library. He's
constructed a fascinating tale, even a suspenseful one. After a banana
obsession for a couple years, he must have turned a mellow yellow.
Koeppel relates the long history of the banana, starting with the very probable
idea that the original fruit in the Garden of Eden would have been a banana, not
an apple. He rightly points out that in some parts of the world, especially East
Africa, bananas are a lot more than a snack or a topping---they are life itself.
When we arrive at the 19th century and the beginning of large scale
plantations and exporting for the American (and European) markets, politics and
plant breeding enter the scene. How to develop a fruit that can be exported easily
without being damaged and without rotting on the way ? Then, soon enough,
diseases get into the picture. Actually, the main theme of the book, sometimes
pushed into the background, is that "something is rotten in Denmark", or in this
case, perhaps Honduras. A disease is killing bananas all around the world, and the
one variety we've chosen as "the" banana is threatened. How could this happen ?
What are we doing about it ? Why is this a special problem for bananas? All
these questions will be answered, though a cure for the disease has not been found
yet. For an extremely interesting read about a topic you've doubtless never thought
about as you picked up a few bananas from your local supermarket or grocery shop, or
sliced some of the same onto your corn flakes, I strongly recommend..... One of the best books I've read in quite a while.
Take it with a grain of salt It ssems the author did his homework on the details of the fruit, however I am not so sure about the rest. I can only attest to the inaccuracies concerning my family, the D'Antonis and Standard Fruit. We have a well documented family and comapny history in the better researched thesis "Tropical Enterprize". I tend to think Mr. Koppel took as truth some tall tales in Honduras, which are not even plausable with simple knowledge of corporate function. No need for detail, but the family knows the truth and that is all that matters, just thought his readers should know this is not bible. Surprisingly interesting tour of the banana industry My stepson is from Honduras, and used to work on a banana plantation, so when somebody gave him this book I thought I would read a few pages -- I didn't think my interest would last longer than that. Somehow I ended up reading the whole thing. :^)
So first of all, for anyone who is thinking "How much is there to say about bananas, really?" the answer is "Quite a lot!" In a nutshell, the banana is highly unusual in two regards:
1. Banana plants produce great quantities of very popular fruit, which we have figured out how to cultivate and ship from the tropics to other countries at low prices. In that sense they are a dream come true for industry.
2. Banana plants are sterile, reproducing only through what is essentially cloning, making them highly susceptible to various devastating diseases and extremely difficult to modify through conventional means. In that sense they are a nightmare come true for industry.
The combination of huge business opportunity and high risk makes for a very interesting history, present, and future of what most of us think of as just another fruit. Also, I had heard about resentment against US influence in Central America but never really understood it; now I do. To any Central Americans out there reading this, I can only say that most Americans don't have any idea what these corporations did, and most probably wouldn't approve if they did.
And by the way, did you know that bananas sold in most countries (including the US) a few generations ago were of a variety known as "Gros Michel" and can no longer be found? When the Gros Michel was being wiped out by disease, they were replaced by a variety known as the "Cavendish" -- probably the only banana most of us have ever eaten. And now the Cavendish itself is in danger.
Anyway, it's really quite an interesting read. Now I would love to taste a Gros Michel! |  |
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