The Business of Empire: United Fruit, Race, and U.S. Expansion in Central America

The United States in the World

by Jason M. Colby

The link between private corporations and U.S. world power has a much longer history than most people realize. Transnational firms such as the United Fruit Company represent an earlier stage of the economic and cultural globalization now taking place throughout the world. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources in the United States, Great Britain, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, Colby combines "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to provide new insight into the role of transnational capital, labor migration, and racial nationalism in shaping U.S. expansion into Central America and the greater Caribbean. The Business of Empire places corporate power and local context at the heart of U.S. imperial history.

In the early twentieth century, U.S. influence in Central America came primarily in the form of private enterprise, above all United Fruit. Founded amid the U.S. leap into overseas empire, the company initially depended upon British West Indian laborers. When its black workforce resisted white American authority, the firm adopted a strategy of labor division by recruiting Hispanic migrants. This labor system drew the company into increased conflict with its host nations, as Central American nationalists denounced not only U.S. military interventions in the region but also American employment of black immigrants. By the 1930s, just as Washington renounced military intervention in Latin America, United Fruit pursued its own Good Neighbor Policy, which brought a reduction in its corporate colonial power and a ban on the hiring of black immigrants. The end of the company's system of labor division in turn pointed the way to the transformation of United Fruit as well as the broader U.S. empire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, The United States Of America, Latin American History

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 2011

Reviews

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly detailed analysis of the impact of U.S. corporate colonialism in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Panama through the lens of the United Fruit Company. Recommended for anyone seeking to understand the U.S. impact in the region outside of military power. Colby prompts us to consider the long-reaching effects of U.S. soft power and corporate presence on today's Central America.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is a little misleading -- this book is pretty light on the "business" of empire, and it really focuses the most deeply on issues of race and immigration in Central America.

[Jacob Wilkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In depth account of the role of corporations in US empire building. This book helped me understand the cultural differences between Central American countries.

[Fresno Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

somewhat repetitive

[Haley Sluyter · Rating 1 out of 5]

fuck chiquita