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The fish that ate the whale : the life and times of America's banana king / Rich Cohen.

by Cohen, Rich.

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Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.

Zemurray, Samuel, 1877-1961.

United Fruit Company.

Jewish businesspeople -- Louisiana -- New Orleans -- Biography.

Banana trade -- United States -- History.

9780374299279 (hc.)

0374299277 (hc.)

Alternate title:

Life and times of America's banana king

xiii, 270 p. : map ; 24 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-270).

Green: -- Selma -- Ripes -- The fruit jobber -- Brown to green -- Bananas don't grow on trees -- The octopus -- New Orleans; -- Yellow: -- The isthmus -- To the Collins -- Revolutin' -- To the isthmus and back -- The bananas war; -- Ripe: -- King fish -- The fish that ate the whale -- Los Pericos -- Bananas go to war -- Israel is real -- Operation success -- Backlash; -- Brown: -- What remains -- Bay of Pigs -- The earth eats the fish that ate the whale -- Fastest way to the street; -- Epilogue.

A biography of the little-known antihero, Samuel Zemurray (1877-1961), the disgraced mogul of the much hated United Fruit Company who aided the creation of Israel, funded many of Tulane University's buildings, and had a hand in the rise of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.

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

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