Bananas

Dan Koeppel may have written a great book about bananas, but he's a little late. Earlier in the year, Peter Chapman wrote "Bananas; How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World." (Koeppel seems to have swiped Chapman's title, and that makes Koeppel look a bit sketchy, but it may not have been his decision. Publishers sometimes determine the titles of books.)

I LOVE THIS BOOK. It's phenomenal. It tells the history of the United Fruit Company, and, trust me, it's not pretty. There's a ton of intrigue -- the coup in Guatemala, nasty business in Honduras, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, right-wing Colombian death squads -- and so much fun. The writing is brilliant and clear and you will want to drop everything to continue reading. (My children have learned how to cook dinner for themselves...just kidding.)

The one down side is that Chapman is so brilliant that he assumes that his readers know a great deal about American history. I do, so that's not a problem, but most Americans don't. If John Foster Dulles doesn't immediately ring a bell, you may miss a great deal of the import of this work. Read it anyway. You'll learn something.