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The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King
A legendary tale, both true and astonishing, from the author of Israel is Real and
Sweet and Low
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, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and a plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that 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. In Latin America, when people shouted “Yankee, go home!” it was men like Zemurray they had in mind.
Rich Cohen’s brilliant historical profile The Fish That Ate the Whale unveils Zemurray as a hidden kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary, driven by an indomitable will to succeed. Known as El Amigo, the Gringo, or simply Z, the Banana Man lived one of the great untold stories of the last hundred years. 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. From hustling on the docks of New Orleans to overthrowing Central American governments, from feuding with Huey Long to working with the Dulles brothers, Zemurray emerges as an unforgettable figure, connected to the birth of modern American diplomacy, public relations, business, and war—a monumental life that reads like a parable of the American dream.
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, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and a plantation owner. He battled and conquered the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that 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. In Latin America, when people shouted “Yankee, go home!” it was men like Zemurray they had in mind.
Rich Cohen’s brilliant historical profile The Fish That Ate the Whale unveils Zemurray as a hidden kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary, driven by an indomitable will to succeed. Known as El Amigo, the Gringo, or simply Z, the Banana Man lived one of the great untold stories of the last hundred years. 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. From hustling on the docks of New Orleans to overthrowing Central American governments, from feuding with Huey Long to working with the Dulles brothers, Zemurray emerges as an unforgettable figure, connected to the birth of modern American diplomacy, public relations, business, and war—a monumental life that reads like a parable of the American dream.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published June 5, 2012
About the author
Rich Cohen
29 books400 followersRICH COHEN is the author of Sweet and Low (FSG, 2006), Tough Jews, The Avengers, The Record Men, and the memoir Lake Effect. His work has appeared in many major publications, and he is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. He lives with his family in Connecticut.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Coh...
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Coh...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 643 reviews
June 17, 2012
Reading this book felt like listening to a very elderly professor tell a story. It started out about Samuel Zemurray, the banana king. It wandered off and told long tales about various people associated with him, the history of the banana business, the history of Guatemala and Honduras, Che Guevara, WWII, the founding of the Israeli state, Tulane University, how the author wrote the book, and I'm just skimming the surface of the meanderings.
I know more than I did before I read the book, but I didn't enjoy the course.
I know more than I did before I read the book, but I didn't enjoy the course.
June 3, 2019
Scattered both internationally and thematically, this book is a bit of a rambler.
Banana republics, foreign cowboys, embezzlement, monopolies, men of action, and the Latin American nightmare unfold alongside "a parable of the American dream—not history as it is recorded in textbooks, but the authentic, cask-strength version, a subterranean saga of kickbacks, overthrows, and secret deals: the world as it really works."
Although this book could have used a heavier handed editor, it was still very interesting despite all the author's personal interjections.
“Show me a happy man and I will show you a man who is getting nothing accomplished in this world.”
“There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot afford to.”
“What cannot be accomplished by threats can often be achieved by composure. Sit and stare and let your opponent fill the silence with his own demons.”
Banana republics, foreign cowboys, embezzlement, monopolies, men of action, and the Latin American nightmare unfold alongside "a parable of the American dream—not history as it is recorded in textbooks, but the authentic, cask-strength version, a subterranean saga of kickbacks, overthrows, and secret deals: the world as it really works."
Although this book could have used a heavier handed editor, it was still very interesting despite all the author's personal interjections.
“Show me a happy man and I will show you a man who is getting nothing accomplished in this world.”
“There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot afford to.”
“What cannot be accomplished by threats can often be achieved by composure. Sit and stare and let your opponent fill the silence with his own demons.”
July 30, 2016
The story peaks early, and the remaining 3/4 of the book is a jumble of apologetic mishmash. Cohen would have served his reader better by not interjecting himself into the biography of someone else time and time again. Cohen has an agenda for this book, and he bent the story to fit it. I lost count of the time he states "He would have said this..." or "He would have believed this way...". These conjectures became so tiresome and annoying and I ended up skimming the last few chapters.
2 stars because Zemurray's early life was fascinatingly manical and a wild ride ... but I already knew this story. I first learned of this story (Zemurray's plot in Honduras) after reading Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, and was so captivated that I spent the next year studying it extensively... I read everything I could get my hands on about bananas, Central American history and geography, New Orleans in the early 1900s, Gilded Age US politics, Great White Fleet, and Samuel Zemurray and other assorted characters in this "story".
I totally recommend learning more of this story because we continue to see the ramifications of these geopolitical power plays today, over a century after the "banana republics"; however, this book is not worth more than a cursory glance.
2 stars because Zemurray's early life was fascinatingly manical and a wild ride ... but I already knew this story. I first learned of this story (Zemurray's plot in Honduras) after reading Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, and was so captivated that I spent the next year studying it extensively... I read everything I could get my hands on about bananas, Central American history and geography, New Orleans in the early 1900s, Gilded Age US politics, Great White Fleet, and Samuel Zemurray and other assorted characters in this "story".
I totally recommend learning more of this story because we continue to see the ramifications of these geopolitical power plays today, over a century after the "banana republics"; however, this book is not worth more than a cursory glance.
August 25, 2021
This is a biography of Samuel Zemurray, the banana king. Born in Bessarabia (now Moldova, in 1877 when he was born – the Russian Empire, taken from Ottomans in the 1850s), he emigrated to the US in 1891, started trading ripe bananas, thrown of by then the monopoly United Fruit is 1905, set a new government in Honduras in 1912 and this is only a start! I read it as a part of monthly reading for August 2021 at Non Fiction Book Club group.
This is a story of self-made man, who affected the global history, especially in the USA and Latin America, and his influence was both good and bad. It is well-known that most LatAm authors, like Gabriel García Márquez in his famous One Hundred Years of Solitude, don’t like the US banana exporting companies, which came in the early 20th century, boosting hopes that the yoke of aristocratic families that ruled the Isthmus since conquistadors, will be replaced by Gringo banana men. While the latter added a bit of social mobility, they used their wealth to overthrow the aristocrats, becoming aristocrats themselves. Unlike the old families, the banana royalty had no roots in the region. Zemurray was one of these gringos, even if, after acquiring banana plantations, he, unlike most other banana business management, actually lived there.
He started as a kid, a set of eyes peering from the steerage deck of an Atlantic steamer. He grew into a young man, a go-getter hauling ripes. He became a hustler, hurrying through the streets of the French Quarter with a pocketful of bills. When he went to the isthmus, he became the Gringo humping over the mountains on a mule, buying and clearing swaths of jungle. Then he was El Amigo, the father of the revolution, a man with nothing to lose. Then he was the little guy at war with the Octopus. Then he was a millionaire, a sellout, a retiree, a battler in a political war, a symbol of everything good and bad about America, the opportunity to rise and the inevitable corruption, the best and worst. He had finally become the boss, the king, one of the most powerful men in America.
Maybe the two most prominent points are his overthrow of Honduras government and his acquisition of the United Fruit.
During the first, Honduras owed millions to bankers in London, far more than it could ever repay because of corrupt practices, like building unnecessary railroad. In 1900, the bankers demanded settle $100mn debt, ominously suggesting the issue might be resolved by the British navy. The US was concerned, for it challenged the Monroe Doctrine, so they J. Pierpont Morgan to buy all of the outstanding Honduran railroad bonds, satisfying the British banks. Morgan would then refinance the debt. Morgan agreed under the following condition: in return for money and services, officials from the Morgan bank would be seated in the customshouse in Puerto Cortés, where they would collect a duty on all imports. This endangered Zemurray ‘no duties or taxes’ deal with Honduras, so he bought a decommissioned warship, gathered daredevils and attacked the government, replacing it with his man, Manuel Bonilla, who re-instated all duty-free deals with Zemurray.
During the second, after his company was engulfed by the United Fruit, he got a formal post in the board of directors. However, he gathered votes of other share owners, so when he spoke on a meeting, explaining his ideas in the thick accent, the chairman Wing smiled and said, “Unfortunately, Mr. Zemurray, I can’t understand a word of what you say.” Zemurray’s stormed out. Perhaps the board members believed Zemurray had been chased away, was fleeing back to New Orleans. In truth, he had only gone to retrieve his bag of proxies. Returning to the boardroom, he slapped them on the table and said, “You’re fired! Can you understand that, Mr. Chairman?” Then he made a great re-haul of the corporation, allowing it to survive another 30 years.
It is an interesting story of life of quite a unordinary man. There is also info about his cooperation with world Zionist organizations, support of Israel, work the CIA, including during the failed Cuba intervention.
This is a story of self-made man, who affected the global history, especially in the USA and Latin America, and his influence was both good and bad. It is well-known that most LatAm authors, like Gabriel García Márquez in his famous One Hundred Years of Solitude, don’t like the US banana exporting companies, which came in the early 20th century, boosting hopes that the yoke of aristocratic families that ruled the Isthmus since conquistadors, will be replaced by Gringo banana men. While the latter added a bit of social mobility, they used their wealth to overthrow the aristocrats, becoming aristocrats themselves. Unlike the old families, the banana royalty had no roots in the region. Zemurray was one of these gringos, even if, after acquiring banana plantations, he, unlike most other banana business management, actually lived there.
He started as a kid, a set of eyes peering from the steerage deck of an Atlantic steamer. He grew into a young man, a go-getter hauling ripes. He became a hustler, hurrying through the streets of the French Quarter with a pocketful of bills. When he went to the isthmus, he became the Gringo humping over the mountains on a mule, buying and clearing swaths of jungle. Then he was El Amigo, the father of the revolution, a man with nothing to lose. Then he was the little guy at war with the Octopus. Then he was a millionaire, a sellout, a retiree, a battler in a political war, a symbol of everything good and bad about America, the opportunity to rise and the inevitable corruption, the best and worst. He had finally become the boss, the king, one of the most powerful men in America.
Maybe the two most prominent points are his overthrow of Honduras government and his acquisition of the United Fruit.
During the first, Honduras owed millions to bankers in London, far more than it could ever repay because of corrupt practices, like building unnecessary railroad. In 1900, the bankers demanded settle $100mn debt, ominously suggesting the issue might be resolved by the British navy. The US was concerned, for it challenged the Monroe Doctrine, so they J. Pierpont Morgan to buy all of the outstanding Honduran railroad bonds, satisfying the British banks. Morgan would then refinance the debt. Morgan agreed under the following condition: in return for money and services, officials from the Morgan bank would be seated in the customshouse in Puerto Cortés, where they would collect a duty on all imports. This endangered Zemurray ‘no duties or taxes’ deal with Honduras, so he bought a decommissioned warship, gathered daredevils and attacked the government, replacing it with his man, Manuel Bonilla, who re-instated all duty-free deals with Zemurray.
During the second, after his company was engulfed by the United Fruit, he got a formal post in the board of directors. However, he gathered votes of other share owners, so when he spoke on a meeting, explaining his ideas in the thick accent, the chairman Wing smiled and said, “Unfortunately, Mr. Zemurray, I can’t understand a word of what you say.” Zemurray’s stormed out. Perhaps the board members believed Zemurray had been chased away, was fleeing back to New Orleans. In truth, he had only gone to retrieve his bag of proxies. Returning to the boardroom, he slapped them on the table and said, “You’re fired! Can you understand that, Mr. Chairman?” Then he made a great re-haul of the corporation, allowing it to survive another 30 years.
It is an interesting story of life of quite a unordinary man. There is also info about his cooperation with world Zionist organizations, support of Israel, work the CIA, including during the failed Cuba intervention.
July 26, 2023
Chances are, you’ve never heard of the guy who was famously called America’s Banana King. But if you’re not aware of some of the things he’s done, you’ll never be a big winner on Jeopardy or pass an AP test in modern world history. Just for example, he was the guy who engineered the CIA-led coup that overthrew the government of Guatemala in 1954, ushering in an era of intensified hatred for the United States throughout Latin America.
The same man was also pivotal in the early history of Israel. As Chaim Weizmann’s favorite donor in America. As the man who pulled strings to force the release of the ship Exodus from the Port of Philadelphia and send it on its way to Israel. And as the source of ocean-going ships that carried tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from displaced-person camps in Europe to Palestine. Not to mention that he was the central figure in persuading President Truman to support the independence of Israel. Oh, and he also helped make the banana America’s favorite fruit. What else would you expect of America’s Banana King?
HOW A PENNILESS IMMIGRANT BECAME AMERICA’S BANANA KING
His name was Samuel Zemurray (1877-1961). He arrived in the United States in 1891 as a 14-year-old, a penniless Russian Jewish immigrant fresh off his father’s wheat farm in present-day Moldova. Within two decades, he was a multimillionaire, only a little past the age of 30. And that was back in the day when a million dollars was a lot of money. (In fact, it was equivalent to more than $32 million in 2023.)
Having stumbled across his first banana before the turn of the century, Sam had become a major factor in the banana trade by 1910. Already then, he was a thorn in the side of the United Fruit Company, which commanded 60 percent of the market. Unlike most of his competitors, Sam had taken up residence in Honduras, where he worked the fields alongside his men and went out drinking with them in the evenings. He was a beloved figure throughout banana country on the Central American isthmus despite his later reputation as the personification of American imperialism and exploitation.
Two decades later, during the Depression, exasperated with United Fruit’s incompetent, Boston-bound leadership, he engineered a takeover of the company at a time when it was on the ropes. He led U.F.—known as “The Octopus” or “El Pulpo”—back to consistent profits for 25 years. But then he foundered on the heels of his greatest triumph: the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz as President of Guatemala, which ironically brought to a close the era of the United Fruit Company as a landowner in Central America.
AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY WRITTEN WITH A SURE HAND
Nonfiction author Rich Cohen writes the extraordinary story of Sam Zemurray with a sure hand, delving into the recesses of the Banana King’s soul as deeply as could anyone who never met the man. His intimate, first-person style is engaging, often ironic. The Fish That Ate the Whale is a joy to read.
In the end, Cohen offers this judgment of Sam Zemurray: “If he had questioned the workings of [the] machine [he had set in motion and tended so long], he would have been a great man, but he was not a great man; he was a complicated man blessed with great energy and ideas.”
Zemurray died in his palatial New Orleans home in 1961 at the age of 84. Today, many of his descendants remain involved in Central America, as anthropologists, art experts, and in other academic pursuits. Perhaps they did come to understand the workings of Sam’s machine even though he never did.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rich Cohen is the author of fourteen nonfiction books, many of which have been New York Times bestsellers. He is also a contributing editor to two magazines, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, and co-creator of the HBO series Vinyl. More recently, he became a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Cohen was born in 1968 near Chicago and received a BA from Tulane University. He now lives in Connecticut with his four sons.
The same man was also pivotal in the early history of Israel. As Chaim Weizmann’s favorite donor in America. As the man who pulled strings to force the release of the ship Exodus from the Port of Philadelphia and send it on its way to Israel. And as the source of ocean-going ships that carried tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from displaced-person camps in Europe to Palestine. Not to mention that he was the central figure in persuading President Truman to support the independence of Israel. Oh, and he also helped make the banana America’s favorite fruit. What else would you expect of America’s Banana King?
HOW A PENNILESS IMMIGRANT BECAME AMERICA’S BANANA KING
His name was Samuel Zemurray (1877-1961). He arrived in the United States in 1891 as a 14-year-old, a penniless Russian Jewish immigrant fresh off his father’s wheat farm in present-day Moldova. Within two decades, he was a multimillionaire, only a little past the age of 30. And that was back in the day when a million dollars was a lot of money. (In fact, it was equivalent to more than $32 million in 2023.)
Having stumbled across his first banana before the turn of the century, Sam had become a major factor in the banana trade by 1910. Already then, he was a thorn in the side of the United Fruit Company, which commanded 60 percent of the market. Unlike most of his competitors, Sam had taken up residence in Honduras, where he worked the fields alongside his men and went out drinking with them in the evenings. He was a beloved figure throughout banana country on the Central American isthmus despite his later reputation as the personification of American imperialism and exploitation.
Two decades later, during the Depression, exasperated with United Fruit’s incompetent, Boston-bound leadership, he engineered a takeover of the company at a time when it was on the ropes. He led U.F.—known as “The Octopus” or “El Pulpo”—back to consistent profits for 25 years. But then he foundered on the heels of his greatest triumph: the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz as President of Guatemala, which ironically brought to a close the era of the United Fruit Company as a landowner in Central America.
AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY WRITTEN WITH A SURE HAND
Nonfiction author Rich Cohen writes the extraordinary story of Sam Zemurray with a sure hand, delving into the recesses of the Banana King’s soul as deeply as could anyone who never met the man. His intimate, first-person style is engaging, often ironic. The Fish That Ate the Whale is a joy to read.
In the end, Cohen offers this judgment of Sam Zemurray: “If he had questioned the workings of [the] machine [he had set in motion and tended so long], he would have been a great man, but he was not a great man; he was a complicated man blessed with great energy and ideas.”
Zemurray died in his palatial New Orleans home in 1961 at the age of 84. Today, many of his descendants remain involved in Central America, as anthropologists, art experts, and in other academic pursuits. Perhaps they did come to understand the workings of Sam’s machine even though he never did.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rich Cohen is the author of fourteen nonfiction books, many of which have been New York Times bestsellers. He is also a contributing editor to two magazines, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, and co-creator of the HBO series Vinyl. More recently, he became a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Cohen was born in 1968 near Chicago and received a BA from Tulane University. He now lives in Connecticut with his four sons.
December 20, 2021
Corruption. History repeats itself. I wouldn't mind if Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a musical to better explain the historical events the book explores. Monroe Doctrine, streaming on my Spotify. Could be catchy.
April 1, 2020
I know so much about bananas right now it's not even funny. My friends love me for my amazing facts.
February 9, 2013
An interesting read about Sam Zemurray, the Russian immigrant who came to the United States penniless and died one of its wealthiest and most influential men.
One of the greatest strengths of this book is that it's an honest portrayal as Zemurray as a complicated human being. It doesn't try to cover up his misdeeds or his involvement in some of the darkest and morally questionable acts in American foriegn policy during his era. Rather, it explains the rise of Cuyamel Fruit and Zemurray's eventual take over of United Fruit. But it does portray him as a fierce businessman who built one of the most influential companies in history.
What's weak about this book is that you can tell that Cohen writes with a bit of a self righteous and condescending tone. He tries to describe Zemurray as an enigmatic figure who was fierce, yet deeply emotional, etc... when in the end, you look at Zemurray and realize he was just a businessman. A brilliant businessman, but just a businessman nonetheless.
Overall, a very interesting read.
One of the greatest strengths of this book is that it's an honest portrayal as Zemurray as a complicated human being. It doesn't try to cover up his misdeeds or his involvement in some of the darkest and morally questionable acts in American foriegn policy during his era. Rather, it explains the rise of Cuyamel Fruit and Zemurray's eventual take over of United Fruit. But it does portray him as a fierce businessman who built one of the most influential companies in history.
What's weak about this book is that you can tell that Cohen writes with a bit of a self righteous and condescending tone. He tries to describe Zemurray as an enigmatic figure who was fierce, yet deeply emotional, etc... when in the end, you look at Zemurray and realize he was just a businessman. A brilliant businessman, but just a businessman nonetheless.
Overall, a very interesting read.
May 22, 2020
The Fish That Ate the Whale took me all the way from the busy docks of New Orleans to the sultry groves of Honduras, and elsewhere, across the world. Everywhere that the towering (literally) figure of Sam Zemurray had set foot.
This is a fascinating read. However, it's less about the life and more about the times that America's banana king lived in. Cohen bases the book on a wafer-thin personal plot - Sam Zemurray arrives in America, an immigrant hungry to succeed. His rise is quick and we get to know a bit about the man's personality. But once he establishes his banana business the book meanders into multiple threads, getting sidetracked into politics and anecdotes about other lesser-known figures. Through these wanderings, I did learn about some intriguing people like Edward Bernay and Tommy "the Cork" Corcoran.
That said, I walked away at the end of the book knowing less about Zemurray than I knew about world politics. I would have liked to know more about his family and his childhood.
I also felt that many of the descriptions about Zemurray himself being a formidable figure came across as forced. He was the typical silent and gruff man who was smart about his business. Isn't Jay from Modern Family the same? Not trying to put down Zemurray here but I just didn't get enough details about him to form this larger-than-life figure that Cohen was trying to project.
Don't skip the book. Just skip a few pages here and there.
This is a fascinating read. However, it's less about the life and more about the times that America's banana king lived in. Cohen bases the book on a wafer-thin personal plot - Sam Zemurray arrives in America, an immigrant hungry to succeed. His rise is quick and we get to know a bit about the man's personality. But once he establishes his banana business the book meanders into multiple threads, getting sidetracked into politics and anecdotes about other lesser-known figures. Through these wanderings, I did learn about some intriguing people like Edward Bernay and Tommy "the Cork" Corcoran.
That said, I walked away at the end of the book knowing less about Zemurray than I knew about world politics. I would have liked to know more about his family and his childhood.
I also felt that many of the descriptions about Zemurray himself being a formidable figure came across as forced. He was the typical silent and gruff man who was smart about his business. Isn't Jay from Modern Family the same? Not trying to put down Zemurray here but I just didn't get enough details about him to form this larger-than-life figure that Cohen was trying to project.
Don't skip the book. Just skip a few pages here and there.
January 2, 2013
(This is my review which appeared in the October 18, 2012 issue of the Christian Science Monitor)
THE FISH THAT ATE THE WHALE, by Rich Cohen
Georges Doriot, the eminent Harvard Business School professor and widely acknowledged “father of venture capital,” had an annual ritual: He would have his students examine a Boston business directory from 100 years prior and then ask them how many of those businesses were still in operation. Invariably, the response ranged from few to none. It was a sobering introduction to the ephemeral nature of even the most well-known and powerful American companies. In Rich Cohen’s wonderful The Fish That Ate the Whale, we are introduced to just such a vanishing corporation, United Fruit Company, and its peripatetic and hyper-focused leader, Samuel “Sam the Banana Man” Zemurray.
Cohen, author of the best-selling "Tough Jews" and "Sweet and Low," has exhaustively researched Zemurray, a Russian émigré who arrived in New York City in 1891 with hardly a cent to his name and who, through hard work, ambition – and not a little luck – rose to become head of United Fruit for approximately 25 years, from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Cohen describes the young Zemurray as "hardened as the men in Walker Evans’ photos, a tough operator, a dead-end kid” – a scrappy worker who demonstrated that one didn’t need to be a Rockefeller to understand the basics of success: start at the bottom, fight your way to the top.
Zemurray emigrated to Alabama shortly after arriving inAmerica, first to Selma, where he worked in his uncle’s store, and shortly thereafter to Mobile. He laid eyes on his first banana on the Mobile docks in 1893, and was quick to carve out a niche for himself in the field peddling “ripes”: bananas that were days from expiring, which the bigger companies like United Fruit considered worthless. Zemurray was both highly aggressive and observant in plying his trade – he was fond of quoting “There is no problem you can’t solve if you understand your business from A to Z” – and by the time he was 21, he was selling nearly 600,000 bananas a year and was essentially a millionaire.
His labors came to the attention of Andrew Preston, the president of United Fruit, who came to Mobile in 1903 and met with Zemurray, caling him "a risk taker ... thinker and a doer.” Preston signed a contract with Zemurray giving the young “fruit jobber” the rights to United Fruit’s ripes. At this point Cohen likens Zemurray to “a bike racer riding in the windbreak of a semitruck – the semitruck being United Fruit” and adds that, “If he had stopped there, his would have been a great success story.”
United Fruit’s march to prominence – and monopoly – was due to the efforts of three men: New Englander Lorenzo Baker, who developed banana fields in Central and South America; Boston Fruit’s Andrew Preston; and Brooklyn-born Minor Keith, who constructed the first cross-Panamarailroad and planted the first banana “rhizomes” in the region. In 1899, Baker, Preston, and Keith sealed a partnership that created United Fruit. Zemurray, as he moved into the business, joined forces with Mobile native Ashbell Hubbard, who had his own contract with United Fruit. Together, with Zemurray’s $20,000 investment, the two men acquired two smaller companies, Cuyamel Fruit Co., and Thatcher Brothers, the latter of which provided the new enterprise with steamships. This put the young company squarely in United Fruit’s crosshairs, and, as Cohen makes clear, the emerging colossus dealt with competitors in only two ways: “absorb or crush.” Zemurray was not about to be crushed.
Having moved to New Orleans in 1905, four years before United Fruit would win a Supreme Court case alleging that they had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, Zemurray met Jake “The Parrot King” Weinberger, an itinerant merchant who had extensive knowledge ofCentral America. (Zemurray would later marry Jake’s daughter Sarah). In 1910, Zemurray traveled toHonduras, where he bought 5,000 acres of land and met “characters” such as fugitive Texas embezzler William Sidney Porter (the author O. Henry). Zemurray found he was easily able to “grease the skids” of his enterprise by bribing officials of the heavily indebted Dávila government and by paying for Washingtonlobbyists to kill a plan by US Secretary of State Philander Knox to place a duty on all imports, bananas included.
Finally Zemurray decided to quietly overthrow the Honduran government. The new leader, General Manuel Bonilla, gave Zemurray essentially a free hand in expanding his business interests in the country.
The inevitable “banana war,” as Cohen describes it, pitted Zemurray, the “gringo” who rode with the roughnecks of the isthmus, against the starch-collared Brahmins of Boston of United Fruit, who seemed to operate from another planet. They sought to cut off Zemurray’s supply chain but, seeing that Zemurray was unrelenting, they arrived at a deal, brokered by United Fruit board member Bradley Palmer, that offered Zemurray 300,000 shares of United Fruit stock to leave the banana trade. Zemurray accepted but – still volatile, restless, and driven – he was nowhere near ready to relax and rest on his laurels. As Cohen sums up his world view: “Show me a happy man, and I will show you a man who is getting nothing accomplished in the world.”
The board of United Fruit were from Boston’s business elite. They had little use for this hard-headed and raving Russian. Zemurray, seeing the value of his United Fruit stock dwindle from $30 million initially to $3 million in 1932, spent the months before United Fruit's January, 1933, board meeting secretly gathering voting proxies against the United Fruit board. At that winter’s meeting, Zemurray made a personal appeal, saying the board had continually ignored his advice. At the end of it, board chairman Daniel Gould Wing sneered at him, saying, “Unfortunately, Mr. Zemurray, I can’t understand a word of what you say.” Zemurray then angrily left the room and returned with the large sack of proxies, which he threw on the table, saying “You're fired! Can you understand that, Mr. Chairman?” In the Central American isthmus, the demoralized population viewed Zemurray’s ascent to the head of United Fruit as a godsend. But Boston’s anti-Semetic gentry had reserved one last insult. As a Jew, Zemurray was essentially blackballed in the city, and when homeowners wouldn’t sell to him, he gave up, taking an apartment in the Ritz Carlton instead.
Now a powerful man, Zemurray, concerned about Adolf Hitler’s atrocities against the Jewish people, used his considerable wealth and other resources to help establish a Jewish foothold inIsrael. Cohen makes clear that Zemurray, although not exactly an observant Jew, acted decisively and forthrightly when asked to help. Citing his World War II efforts, Cohen says Zemurray “involved himself in the war effort as much as possible, volunteered, hosted, contributed... [did] everything but fight, and would have done that, if not for his advancing years.”
After the war, both the political landscape and United Fruit’s swelling size changed the Central American isthmus. Cohen asserts, “By 1942, the company owned 70 percent of all private land in Guatemala, controlled 75 percent of all trade, and owned most of the roads, power stations and phone lines, the only Pacific seaport and every mile of railroad.” Guatemala’s people had had enough and were inflamed with desire to end the brand of colonialism and racism they associated with United Fruit. In 1951, charismatic revolutionary leader Jacobo Arbenz assumed Guatemala’s presidency and one year later signed “Decree 900,” which gave the government the right to appropriate hundreds of thousands of acres of United Fruit property which was distributed among Guatemalan peasants.
Zemurray was incensed and used every device at his disposal – the Central Intelligence Agency, the press, and even the “Father of Public Relations,” Edward Bernays – to undermine Guatemalan resistance efforts. The CIA targeted Arbenz with their "Operation Success" and by 1954 Arbenz was gone with nary a struggle.
But the political backlash in America following “Operation Success” was swift and powerful. It was widely reported that the campaign to overthrow Arbenz was mounted chiefly for economic reasons, and for one company in particular: United Fruit. The Justice Department now had the leverage to descend upon United Fruit’s monopoly as never before, and in 1958, the company signed a consent decree with the government that effectively sealed its demise. Its profits dried up, and parts of it were sold off to companies such as Dole and Del Monte.
It was an unseemly and devastating defeat for Zemurray. By 1960 this figure of large build, dominating personality, and boundless energy was a broken man who lingered in coffee shops in New Orleans’ French Quarter, “an old man with his buttermilk and Times-Picayune.” Cohen’s masterful and elegantly written account of Zemurray and the corporation he built is a cautionary tale for the ages: how hubris can destroy even the greatest and most powerful company. Today, United Fruit exists only as yet another of those expired entries in the Boston Business Directory.
THE FISH THAT ATE THE WHALE, by Rich Cohen
Georges Doriot, the eminent Harvard Business School professor and widely acknowledged “father of venture capital,” had an annual ritual: He would have his students examine a Boston business directory from 100 years prior and then ask them how many of those businesses were still in operation. Invariably, the response ranged from few to none. It was a sobering introduction to the ephemeral nature of even the most well-known and powerful American companies. In Rich Cohen’s wonderful The Fish That Ate the Whale, we are introduced to just such a vanishing corporation, United Fruit Company, and its peripatetic and hyper-focused leader, Samuel “Sam the Banana Man” Zemurray.
Cohen, author of the best-selling "Tough Jews" and "Sweet and Low," has exhaustively researched Zemurray, a Russian émigré who arrived in New York City in 1891 with hardly a cent to his name and who, through hard work, ambition – and not a little luck – rose to become head of United Fruit for approximately 25 years, from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Cohen describes the young Zemurray as "hardened as the men in Walker Evans’ photos, a tough operator, a dead-end kid” – a scrappy worker who demonstrated that one didn’t need to be a Rockefeller to understand the basics of success: start at the bottom, fight your way to the top.
Zemurray emigrated to Alabama shortly after arriving inAmerica, first to Selma, where he worked in his uncle’s store, and shortly thereafter to Mobile. He laid eyes on his first banana on the Mobile docks in 1893, and was quick to carve out a niche for himself in the field peddling “ripes”: bananas that were days from expiring, which the bigger companies like United Fruit considered worthless. Zemurray was both highly aggressive and observant in plying his trade – he was fond of quoting “There is no problem you can’t solve if you understand your business from A to Z” – and by the time he was 21, he was selling nearly 600,000 bananas a year and was essentially a millionaire.
His labors came to the attention of Andrew Preston, the president of United Fruit, who came to Mobile in 1903 and met with Zemurray, caling him "a risk taker ... thinker and a doer.” Preston signed a contract with Zemurray giving the young “fruit jobber” the rights to United Fruit’s ripes. At this point Cohen likens Zemurray to “a bike racer riding in the windbreak of a semitruck – the semitruck being United Fruit” and adds that, “If he had stopped there, his would have been a great success story.”
United Fruit’s march to prominence – and monopoly – was due to the efforts of three men: New Englander Lorenzo Baker, who developed banana fields in Central and South America; Boston Fruit’s Andrew Preston; and Brooklyn-born Minor Keith, who constructed the first cross-Panamarailroad and planted the first banana “rhizomes” in the region. In 1899, Baker, Preston, and Keith sealed a partnership that created United Fruit. Zemurray, as he moved into the business, joined forces with Mobile native Ashbell Hubbard, who had his own contract with United Fruit. Together, with Zemurray’s $20,000 investment, the two men acquired two smaller companies, Cuyamel Fruit Co., and Thatcher Brothers, the latter of which provided the new enterprise with steamships. This put the young company squarely in United Fruit’s crosshairs, and, as Cohen makes clear, the emerging colossus dealt with competitors in only two ways: “absorb or crush.” Zemurray was not about to be crushed.
Having moved to New Orleans in 1905, four years before United Fruit would win a Supreme Court case alleging that they had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, Zemurray met Jake “The Parrot King” Weinberger, an itinerant merchant who had extensive knowledge ofCentral America. (Zemurray would later marry Jake’s daughter Sarah). In 1910, Zemurray traveled toHonduras, where he bought 5,000 acres of land and met “characters” such as fugitive Texas embezzler William Sidney Porter (the author O. Henry). Zemurray found he was easily able to “grease the skids” of his enterprise by bribing officials of the heavily indebted Dávila government and by paying for Washingtonlobbyists to kill a plan by US Secretary of State Philander Knox to place a duty on all imports, bananas included.
Finally Zemurray decided to quietly overthrow the Honduran government. The new leader, General Manuel Bonilla, gave Zemurray essentially a free hand in expanding his business interests in the country.
The inevitable “banana war,” as Cohen describes it, pitted Zemurray, the “gringo” who rode with the roughnecks of the isthmus, against the starch-collared Brahmins of Boston of United Fruit, who seemed to operate from another planet. They sought to cut off Zemurray’s supply chain but, seeing that Zemurray was unrelenting, they arrived at a deal, brokered by United Fruit board member Bradley Palmer, that offered Zemurray 300,000 shares of United Fruit stock to leave the banana trade. Zemurray accepted but – still volatile, restless, and driven – he was nowhere near ready to relax and rest on his laurels. As Cohen sums up his world view: “Show me a happy man, and I will show you a man who is getting nothing accomplished in the world.”
The board of United Fruit were from Boston’s business elite. They had little use for this hard-headed and raving Russian. Zemurray, seeing the value of his United Fruit stock dwindle from $30 million initially to $3 million in 1932, spent the months before United Fruit's January, 1933, board meeting secretly gathering voting proxies against the United Fruit board. At that winter’s meeting, Zemurray made a personal appeal, saying the board had continually ignored his advice. At the end of it, board chairman Daniel Gould Wing sneered at him, saying, “Unfortunately, Mr. Zemurray, I can’t understand a word of what you say.” Zemurray then angrily left the room and returned with the large sack of proxies, which he threw on the table, saying “You're fired! Can you understand that, Mr. Chairman?” In the Central American isthmus, the demoralized population viewed Zemurray’s ascent to the head of United Fruit as a godsend. But Boston’s anti-Semetic gentry had reserved one last insult. As a Jew, Zemurray was essentially blackballed in the city, and when homeowners wouldn’t sell to him, he gave up, taking an apartment in the Ritz Carlton instead.
Now a powerful man, Zemurray, concerned about Adolf Hitler’s atrocities against the Jewish people, used his considerable wealth and other resources to help establish a Jewish foothold inIsrael. Cohen makes clear that Zemurray, although not exactly an observant Jew, acted decisively and forthrightly when asked to help. Citing his World War II efforts, Cohen says Zemurray “involved himself in the war effort as much as possible, volunteered, hosted, contributed... [did] everything but fight, and would have done that, if not for his advancing years.”
After the war, both the political landscape and United Fruit’s swelling size changed the Central American isthmus. Cohen asserts, “By 1942, the company owned 70 percent of all private land in Guatemala, controlled 75 percent of all trade, and owned most of the roads, power stations and phone lines, the only Pacific seaport and every mile of railroad.” Guatemala’s people had had enough and were inflamed with desire to end the brand of colonialism and racism they associated with United Fruit. In 1951, charismatic revolutionary leader Jacobo Arbenz assumed Guatemala’s presidency and one year later signed “Decree 900,” which gave the government the right to appropriate hundreds of thousands of acres of United Fruit property which was distributed among Guatemalan peasants.
Zemurray was incensed and used every device at his disposal – the Central Intelligence Agency, the press, and even the “Father of Public Relations,” Edward Bernays – to undermine Guatemalan resistance efforts. The CIA targeted Arbenz with their "Operation Success" and by 1954 Arbenz was gone with nary a struggle.
But the political backlash in America following “Operation Success” was swift and powerful. It was widely reported that the campaign to overthrow Arbenz was mounted chiefly for economic reasons, and for one company in particular: United Fruit. The Justice Department now had the leverage to descend upon United Fruit’s monopoly as never before, and in 1958, the company signed a consent decree with the government that effectively sealed its demise. Its profits dried up, and parts of it were sold off to companies such as Dole and Del Monte.
It was an unseemly and devastating defeat for Zemurray. By 1960 this figure of large build, dominating personality, and boundless energy was a broken man who lingered in coffee shops in New Orleans’ French Quarter, “an old man with his buttermilk and Times-Picayune.” Cohen’s masterful and elegantly written account of Zemurray and the corporation he built is a cautionary tale for the ages: how hubris can destroy even the greatest and most powerful company. Today, United Fruit exists only as yet another of those expired entries in the Boston Business Directory.
September 4, 2021
In this historical biography, Cohen tells the story of Samuel Zemurray, the Banana King. When Zemurray came to America in 1891, he was fourteen and penniless. When he died in 1961 he was among the richest and most powerful men in the world. His fascinating rags to riches story began when he had the idea to pick up unwanted spotted bananas - the “ripes” - from the docks in Selma, Alabama, and found a way to move them by freight train to market faster than they would spoil. From this humble beginning, Zemurray built an empire that led to his involvement in overthrowing Central American governments and taking over the behemoth United Fruit Company, earning for himself the reputation as "the fish that ate the whale."
Cohen brings Zemurray's story to life with rich detail, describing him as “pure hustle,” and he colors in the margins of that remarkable and sometimes controversial life with all kinds of fascinating facts and stories. There were facts about bananas - for example, banana plants are herbs and the banana itself is technically a berry; there were colorful characters such as Lee Christmas, a mercenary whom Zemurray enlisted to recruite a band of men to overthrow the government of Honduras; and there was Zemurray’s tacit involvement in moving displaced Jews to Israel following WWII. All and all, a quite interesting look at a person and industry I knew nothing about.
Cohen brings Zemurray's story to life with rich detail, describing him as “pure hustle,” and he colors in the margins of that remarkable and sometimes controversial life with all kinds of fascinating facts and stories. There were facts about bananas - for example, banana plants are herbs and the banana itself is technically a berry; there were colorful characters such as Lee Christmas, a mercenary whom Zemurray enlisted to recruite a band of men to overthrow the government of Honduras; and there was Zemurray’s tacit involvement in moving displaced Jews to Israel following WWII. All and all, a quite interesting look at a person and industry I knew nothing about.
December 21, 2023
I suppose I'd long heard that banana corporations did bad things in Central American countries, but I never really had the details. Well, here you go: The Fish That Ate the Whale has it all, and most of it stems from one man's life story.
Samuel Zemurray started as Russian emigre-turned-street urchin selling bananas. Soon enough, he owned banana plantations in Honduras. And what better way to keep the Hondurans in line than a revolutionary coup? And just when you start to think affairs in Honduras were pretty rough, you get to the part where the U.S. government, in concert with United Fruit, overthrew the lawfully elected leader of Guatemala...
In the midst of all this, Zemurray and his banana cowboys stride around like world conquerors. To some degree, that must have been true: the banana business boomed in the 20th century. Rich Cohen tells a deeply evocative tale, taking time to get into Zemurray's head and offer detailed descriptions of Central American scenery. Sometimes tangents take over the narrative (there's quite a bit about Che Guevara for no apparent reason), but the story is mostly focused on the big fruit man in charge.
One surprise: Chiquita only came up twice. I assumed that was the corporation causing all the shenanigans, but it turns out United Fruit became Chiquita well after the fact. Huh!
Samuel Zemurray started as Russian emigre-turned-street urchin selling bananas. Soon enough, he owned banana plantations in Honduras. And what better way to keep the Hondurans in line than a revolutionary coup? And just when you start to think affairs in Honduras were pretty rough, you get to the part where the U.S. government, in concert with United Fruit, overthrew the lawfully elected leader of Guatemala...
In the midst of all this, Zemurray and his banana cowboys stride around like world conquerors. To some degree, that must have been true: the banana business boomed in the 20th century. Rich Cohen tells a deeply evocative tale, taking time to get into Zemurray's head and offer detailed descriptions of Central American scenery. Sometimes tangents take over the narrative (there's quite a bit about Che Guevara for no apparent reason), but the story is mostly focused on the big fruit man in charge.
One surprise: Chiquita only came up twice. I assumed that was the corporation causing all the shenanigans, but it turns out United Fruit became Chiquita well after the fact. Huh!
August 26, 2022
I've never heard of Samuel Zemurray before, yet the book left a mark on my understanding of what it takes to become something out of nothing. A penniless Russian immigrant to the president of a massive firm is a story I wouldn't want to miss. I felt that the title "The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King" was a perfect fit for the content I've become familiar with after finishing the book. The sentence "He wanted to win. And would do whatever it took. Here was a self-made man, filled with the most dangerous kind of confidence: he had done it before and believed he could do it again" is good enough to describe what he was. The banana man felt like a male counterpart of "Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos" with the same passion and drive with a "whatever it takes" attitude. The description of the people around the banana empire other than Sam felt bland compared to how he was portrayed. A person going to war when they don't let him do his business is nothing short of a crazy narrative.
May 15, 2022
Entertaining and well-written biography of Samuel Zemurray, a Jewish immigrant from Russian who grew to be one of the richest men in America. Follows not only his life and connections with the "Banana Republics" of Central America, but also with the US government, the New Deal, World War II, the modern state of Israel, and the CIA's war on communism. The author has an excellent turn of phrase and is a pleasure to read. At some points, he goes a bit overboard in injecting his on voice into the text, and has a tendency to digress but since I found these digressions interesting, I found no fault there. Solid 4 stars.
June 30, 2012
The story of the time period from 1890 to 1960 (or so)was interesting. I remember the hoop-la surrounding the events in the mid-50s when Allen Dullas was head of the CIA so learning the background for the previous 50 years in Central America was enlightening.
The book, however, was very poorly written. It would go around and around in a circle, covering the same material and then suddenly shoot off into the stratosphere to take on a different subject altogether. Many of these subjects (like the founding of Israel) were never fleshed out nor resolved.
It was also very disconcerting to be reading along in the 3rd person and then have the author interject himself as the story teller in the 1st person.
And speaking of the author, was this fiction or non-fiction? The author would say things like, "I imagine he would have responded ___" or "I think he would have thought ___" or "I believe he felt ___" And then in the afterward he excused his lack of facts by saying that it was hard to find documents as well as people who actually knew Zemurray or (as in the grandson) who would talk with him.
It was a very tedious read, but about an interesting person.
The book, however, was very poorly written. It would go around and around in a circle, covering the same material and then suddenly shoot off into the stratosphere to take on a different subject altogether. Many of these subjects (like the founding of Israel) were never fleshed out nor resolved.
It was also very disconcerting to be reading along in the 3rd person and then have the author interject himself as the story teller in the 1st person.
And speaking of the author, was this fiction or non-fiction? The author would say things like, "I imagine he would have responded ___" or "I think he would have thought ___" or "I believe he felt ___" And then in the afterward he excused his lack of facts by saying that it was hard to find documents as well as people who actually knew Zemurray or (as in the grandson) who would talk with him.
It was a very tedious read, but about an interesting person.
August 11, 2013
Altough the suject is interesting i think the author missed the mark completly. He is not objective on the subject and has a lot of contradictions. He said Sam Zammuray loved cental america and its people yet he sprayed gas on them in order to defeat a bana disease. Only a small mention of this is in the book and how people lost their sense of taste and also by the way thousands of people died. Just a footnote.
There also is a lot of he said she said in this book. At one point the wrtiter assumes zamuurays biggest regret was not raising his kids as jews... I thinks its the author's regret that he didnt do so....
There also is a lot of he said she said in this book. At one point the wrtiter assumes zamuurays biggest regret was not raising his kids as jews... I thinks its the author's regret that he didnt do so....
August 5, 2016
Fascinating man.
Amazing impact on an entire region.
But . . .
I really don't like a story that interrupts itself to (for example) tell you what route he took to work and then say, Not that we know what route he took every day. We have to guess. Just throws me off the stride.
Amazing impact on an entire region.
But . . .
I really don't like a story that interrupts itself to (for example) tell you what route he took to work and then say, Not that we know what route he took every day. We have to guess. Just throws me off the stride.
October 31, 2017
IMO there just was not enough of a story to support the length of this book. The rags to riches story and the entrepreneurship the allowed the Banana King to build a Central American empire was interesting but could have been 50 pages. Unless you have a strong interest in early 20th century Central American politics, I think you'll find most of the political plotting to be boring.
Add to that the author's clear infatuation with the subject and the lack of solid information about much of his life and you have a book that reads more like a worship of some fantastical idol than an actual biography.
Add to that the author's clear infatuation with the subject and the lack of solid information about much of his life and you have a book that reads more like a worship of some fantastical idol than an actual biography.
March 24, 2024
Read this on Erica’s recommendation and omg it was so interesting. I knew a bit about Zemurray because of Tulane and United Fruit because of a high school paper, but I didn’t know how much I didn’t know! This was a well-written, heavily-researched book, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in American history, especially in America’s interventions in other countries, colonialism, Jewish-American history, and American capitalism.
December 14, 2023
Some interesting anecdotes but way too long and stories often felt disconnected
September 12, 2023
It's hard to put a finger on why I didn't like this book that much. Perhaps because the author skimmed over much of the atrocities committed by Zemurray, or perhaps because his wealth at the end ($30 million in the 60s), whilst high, seems so much lower than the description of his genius would imply.
February 10, 2024
Very well-researched book that captures the Zeitgeist of early 1900s corporate America. The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and this book was no exception. You will be flabbergasted by the agency and power private U.S. citizens had in Central America at that time! Not only educational, but entertaining as well.
May 14, 2022
What a crazy, incredible story! A Russian immigrant comes to the US, moves to deep south, peddles ripe bananas…. And eventually births an incredible (though dark) industry in Central America. But wait… there’s more! Becomes largest landowner in Central America, tries to over-throw governments, assembles an armada of ships, is linked to CIA and funds Israel. What?????? Loved the story, writing was splotchy w oddly placed first-person phrases. But…. The story!!!!!!! My thanks to Tom for the fab share!
August 17, 2023
The Fish That Ate the Whale is Rich Cohen's biography of Sam Zemurray, the "Banana King." It's a wild ride of a tale, as the teenage Russian Jewish immigrant kid rises to become a titan of American capitalism. It is also the story of the corporation, United Fruit, with which he became synonymous. The story is fascinating, and Cohen does a fine job telling it. My only quibble is his treatment of Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, whom the United States -- largely at the behest of United Fruit -- toppled in a coup in 1954. Cohen implies that Arbenz was far more friendly to Communism than he was. In fact, Arbenz's famous Decree 900 was a modest program of land reform, that transferred only fallow land, and paid the owners the value they themselves had given it. In this way, the Indian population would become proprietors, i.e., capitalists. Arbenz's hero really was FDR, and his goal was to make Guatemala a capitalist democracy along the lines of the United States. The coup, "Operation Success," rolled back those modest reforms, and inaugurated a 30-yr. civil war in the country. I give Cohen credit, however, for pointing out that the American ambassador, John Emil Peurifoy, had an ulterior motive for demonstrating that he was a fanatic anti-Communist, namely that he had been the chief of personnel at the State Department when Sen. Joe McCarthy made his wholly unsubstantiated claim that there were some 200 card-carrying Communists at State.
For anyone interested in the 1954 coup and Arbenz's land reform, I recommend Mario Vargas Llosa's novel Hard Times.
For anyone interested in the 1954 coup and Arbenz's land reform, I recommend Mario Vargas Llosa's novel Hard Times.
January 22, 2018
Interesting biography about a man who had a greater impact on history than most people probably realize. I agree with other reviewers that the author is prone to go off on tangents, but I found them all fairly interesting so didn't mind them.
Having read Bitter Fruit (which I highly recommend!), I knew the book would eventually get to United Fruit's involvement in the '54 Guatemalan coup. I was looking forward to learning more about Zemurray's role in the coup - did he help initiate the campaign? How much did he know? Instead, this part of the book was frustratingly confusing. It's not clear at all if Zemurray even played a role. The book doesn't clearly state that he retired as President from U.F. in 1951 (the coup was three years later). But '51 is when the propaganda campaign started - so was he involved or not? The book also briefly mentions Zemurray getting updates from Corcoran (his apparent go-between with the CIA), but doesn't mention in what capacity and during what time period.
Despite a few bumps, overall I found the book to be interesting and I learned a lot more on the topic. 3 stars.
Having read Bitter Fruit (which I highly recommend!), I knew the book would eventually get to United Fruit's involvement in the '54 Guatemalan coup. I was looking forward to learning more about Zemurray's role in the coup - did he help initiate the campaign? How much did he know? Instead, this part of the book was frustratingly confusing. It's not clear at all if Zemurray even played a role. The book doesn't clearly state that he retired as President from U.F. in 1951 (the coup was three years later). But '51 is when the propaganda campaign started - so was he involved or not? The book also briefly mentions Zemurray getting updates from Corcoran (his apparent go-between with the CIA), but doesn't mention in what capacity and during what time period.
Despite a few bumps, overall I found the book to be interesting and I learned a lot more on the topic. 3 stars.
April 10, 2021
I knew embarrassingly little about United Fruit and a friend sent this book to me a while ago. It fits n with my recent deep dive into CIA activities 1940s—1960s since the overthrow of the Arbenz government of Guatemala features, but the book is largely about the Russian Jewish immigrant who arrived in New Orleans, competed with United Fruit, and eventually took them over entirely.
Samuel Zemurray’s story is interesting enough without the writer getting cutesy as he can at times, but it’s kept to a fair enough minimum. The story features perennial bastards of history John Foster and Allen Dulles plus E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis, more CIA fuckups than you can shake a pointed stick at, corporate exploitation galore (this is why the Olds think it’s funny that kids expect corporate moral leadership), and general pie division of a small sliver of land that America basically plunged into endless civil war.
Samuel Zemurray’s story is interesting enough without the writer getting cutesy as he can at times, but it’s kept to a fair enough minimum. The story features perennial bastards of history John Foster and Allen Dulles plus E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis, more CIA fuckups than you can shake a pointed stick at, corporate exploitation galore (this is why the Olds think it’s funny that kids expect corporate moral leadership), and general pie division of a small sliver of land that America basically plunged into endless civil war.
May 30, 2022
Did you know:
-That since bananas don't reproduce from a seed, but a rhizome, every banana is a clone?
-Which is why bananas get attacked and wiped out by diseases fairly easily, and our current banana varietal (the Cavendish) is ALSO going extinct, expected to be replaced by the Goldfinger. (And neither variety is what was originally peddled in the US, which was the Big Mike (Gros Michel).
-JFK may or may not have been assasinated over issues leading back to the banana industry's presence in Latin America
-And the person who spearheaded the banana business in the US (Sam Zemurray) also had a huge role in establishing the state of Israel.
This and other fascinating information about the rise of the banana business in the US (really the first huge business that would later pave the way for the wealth and horror of globalization we know today.) And, a great interview with the author!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR4US...
-That since bananas don't reproduce from a seed, but a rhizome, every banana is a clone?
-Which is why bananas get attacked and wiped out by diseases fairly easily, and our current banana varietal (the Cavendish) is ALSO going extinct, expected to be replaced by the Goldfinger. (And neither variety is what was originally peddled in the US, which was the Big Mike (Gros Michel).
-JFK may or may not have been assasinated over issues leading back to the banana industry's presence in Latin America
-And the person who spearheaded the banana business in the US (Sam Zemurray) also had a huge role in establishing the state of Israel.
This and other fascinating information about the rise of the banana business in the US (really the first huge business that would later pave the way for the wealth and horror of globalization we know today.) And, a great interview with the author!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR4US...
May 24, 2016
Was not much of a fan of this book. Felt like a great deal of authorial speculation, and a relative paucity of primary evidence. Perhaps this is due to a lack of documentation of and about Zemurray's life, but that was not made clear by the text.
Furthermore, took substantial issue with the author's decision to frame Zemurray's life as an intensely Jewish experience, despite no evidence that Zemurray himself perceived it as such and perhaps even repudiated such a notion. Particularly galling at the close of the book, when the author insists that Zemurray's greatest regret was not instilling the Jewish faith in his children and grandchildren, a conclusion based almost entirely on an anecdote from the wife of Tulane's president, who currently occupies Zemurray's former residence, and whose authority on the subject is not established.
Furthermore, took substantial issue with the author's decision to frame Zemurray's life as an intensely Jewish experience, despite no evidence that Zemurray himself perceived it as such and perhaps even repudiated such a notion. Particularly galling at the close of the book, when the author insists that Zemurray's greatest regret was not instilling the Jewish faith in his children and grandchildren, a conclusion based almost entirely on an anecdote from the wife of Tulane's president, who currently occupies Zemurray's former residence, and whose authority on the subject is not established.
March 6, 2021
Immersive and fascinating tale of a prominent figure that was completely unknown to me. Impressive research into the many different aspects and stages of Zemurray's life, and how they connect with key events of the 20th century - the zenith of American capitalism and worldwide political dominance, the nefarious ties between big corporations and government, the subsequent overthrowing of two rulers of central American countries, and the Zionist movement and early settlement of Israel. Being one of many eastern European immigrants that arrived in the US in the late 1800s, Sam Zemurray became an important person of different faces, depending from where you view him. It's amazing how he tied these events together through his actions, sometimes making himself heard loudly, but most of the times well hidden in the background of History.
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