Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas

by Steve Striffler (Editor), Mark Moberg (Editor)

Over the past century, the banana industry has radically transformed Latin America and the Caribbean and become a major site of United States–Latin American interaction. Banana Wars is a history of the Americas told through the cultural, political, economic, and agricultural processes that brought bananas from the forests of Latin America and the Caribbean to the breakfast tables of the United States and Europe. The first book to examine these processes in all the western hemisphere regions where bananas are grown for sale abroad, Banana Wars advances the growing body of scholarship focusing on export commodities from historical and social scientific perspectives. Bringing together the work of anthropologists, sociologists, economists, historians, and geographers, this collection reveals how the banana industry marshaled workers of differing nationalities, ethnicities, and languages and, in so doing, created unprecedented potential for conflict throughout Latin American and the Caribbean. The frequently abusive conditions that banana workers experienced, the contributors point out, gave rise to one of Latin America’s earliest and most militant labor movements. Responding to both the demands of workers’ organizations and the power of U.S. capital, Latin American governments were inevitably affected by banana production. Banana Wars explores how these governments sometimes asserted their sovereignty over foreign fruit companies, but more often became their willing accomplices. With several essays focusing on the operations of the extraordinarily powerful United Fruit Company, the collection also examines the strategies and reactions of the American and European corporations seeking to profit from the sale of bananas grown by people of different cultures working in varied agricultural and economic environments. Contributors
Philippe Bourgois
Marcelo Bucheli
Dario Euraque
Cindy Forster
Lawrence Grossman
Mark Moberg
Laura T. Raynolds
Karla Slocum
John Soluri
Steve Striffler
Allen Wells

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Economics, Politics

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Ayesha Tahir]

It was genuinely well written and informative, but having to read the whole thing in one day is not ideal. Also, I now hate bananas.

Reading it the second time round was better to be fair. Super interesting.

[Dawn]

Over the past century, the banana industry has radically transformed Latin America and the Caribbean and become a major site of the United States---Latin America interaction. Banana Wars is a history of the Americas told through the cultural, political, economic, and agricultural processes that brought bananas from the forests of Latin America and the Caribbean to the breakfast tables of the United States and Europe. The first book to examine these processes in all the regions in the Western Hemisphere where bananas are grown for sale abroad, Banana Wars advances the growing body of scholarship focusing on export commodities from historical and social scientific perspectives.

First of all, this was the wrong book. A friend recommended a book by the same name, but there are over a dozen by the same title. It's also repetitive. It's a collection of scholarly essays, many of which cover not only the same ground, but many of the authors repeat themselves several times within their own work, often within the same few pages. It struck me as a collection of college research papers. The history is interesting, if you can get through the excessive language and repetition. Given the age of the book (2003), the current growing practices are also very much out of date. Bananas are not the environmental disasters that they once were, nor are the farmers treated poorly. Most of them, at least.

[Kurt]

I haven't read much non-fiction lately, overall, but this book has certainly pulled me back in. It's a fascinating glimpse of the social, environmental, economic, and political impact of an every day fruit that is largely taken for granted.