Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World

Canongate, 2007. Published in the UK as Jungle Capitalists: A Story of Globalisation, Greed and Revolution

The story of the United Fruit Company - and the banana - is the story of the birth of globalisation. In this powerful and gripping book, Peter Chapman traces United Fruit’s mass production of the banana as the first fast food, which today has pushed the fruit to near-extinction. In its rapacious career, United Fruit perpetuated wars, massacres and coups in the so-called ‘banana republics’ of Central America, while manipulating US public opinion. Along the way, the company fostered covert links with Richard Nixon and stoked the revolutionary ire of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. This is a dramatic tale of big business, deceit and lies and of how one company wreaked irrevocable havoc.

‘Witty, energetic, insightful’ – The New York Times Book Review

‘If you only read a handful of non-fiction books this year, ‘Bananas’ is among your recommended five portions’ – Observer

‘An impressive indictment of a deeply flawed corporation’ – The Nation