"Bananas: How the Fruit That Changed the World Shaped History" by Dan Koeppel

Jovani: I found this book very detailed despite the old release date. This fruit holds a lot of value for all parties involved in making this fruit what it is today. At the same time, who would have thought that a single item would cause such delight, joy, and pain, destruction, division - than the banana. It’s a great book to read if you are interested in learning more about the banana’s history.

United States on Oct 13, 2023

Amazon Customer: Great story about the "taken for granted" banana and its history.

Canada on Nov 29, 2020

Amazon Customer: As expected

Canada on Jul 26, 2019

Rene: Eine unheimlich spannende und informative Reise in die Welt der Bananenindustrie.

Kennen Sie "Gros Michel"? Nein? Das war die Bananensorte, die noch Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts in Aller Munde war, bevor sie durch einen Schimmelpilz ("Panama Disease") vernichtet wurde. der "Dicke Michael" war geschmackvoller, robuster und größer als unsere heutige "Cavendish" - was heute auf unseren Teller kommt ist ein wahrer Rückschritt.
Aber auch die Cavendish ist seit einigen Jahren wieder Bedroht - von einer Mutation des originalen Panama Disease Pilzes. Doch heute fehlt eine Ersatzsorte und die Banane, wie wir sie kennen, kann aussterben.

Was klingt wie eine Utopie ist aber tatsächlich Realität.

Dan Koeppel nimmt uns mit auf eine Reise durch die Zeit: Von der Geschichte der Banane, über den Stand der heutigen Bananenindustrie und die Auswirkungen von Monokulturen und Preiskämpfen, und gibt einen Ausblick in die Zukunft - mit oder ohne Banane.
Ein interessanter Einblick in die Welt der modernen Lebensmittelindustrie, und viele - teils unglaubliche - Informationen über eine Frucht, die wir als selbstverständlich erachten. Ein Buch für alle, die Bananen lieben...

Germany on Apr 11, 2016

C. Vremec: This book is a little treasure trove of information, interesting anecdotes, and open questions. I read it quickly and it stayed with me a long time, I find myself recommending it to everyone. The style is clear and easy to follow even in the more technical topics, and it covers thousand of years in a very entertaining way. A must read for everyone interested in ecology, sustainability, and dinner conversations!

Germany on Jan 03, 2016

ogilvie: Koeppel covers just about all conceivable ground, but his concise political and historical summaries are rather more effective than his attempts to deal with the more scientific side of the story. These are diffuse if not obscurantist or irrelevant (e.g., a page-long description of a banana-devoid street outside a building that houses an institute devoted to study of the banana). Students of Central American history are likely to find the relevant sections of the book of interest.

Canada on Jun 07, 2014

john purcell: Dan Koeppel has written an informative fast-paced book detailing the rise and fall of the global banana industry, bringing us along over decades of conflict over land ownership, labor's share of profits, rights of owners of capital, property rights, and self-governance. We start at the very beginning since some believe that the Garden of Eden was the place to grow bananas and not apples. Bananas were transformed in the 19th century from a local fruit to a global market by some adventurous, ruthless, and clever entrepreneurs who overcame issues of distance and spoiling to put cheap bananas in every grocery store in the US. Today the descendants of these pioneering plantation managers, railroad tycoons, and shipping magnates run Dole and Chiquita and still supply us with bananas.

Any venture this large and profitable will undoubtedly lead to arguments over the division of profits. Central American politicians and farm workers were not in agreement with the share taken by Chiquita. The international banana companies (Chiquita had eliminated most of its competition through punitive trade wars and acquisition) felt their property rights, capital, and technology were at risk. In...

United States on May 12, 2013

Fry Boy: The author does a fine job with this history of banana-business rivals United Fruit (now Chiquita) and Standard Fruit (now Dole). Interspersed with the details of corporate development are scientific details on the banana, the diseases that afflict it, the people that rely on it, the governments that are (or have been) ruled because of it and the issues it faces.

Something I didn't know before I read this book: Bananas are not grown from seeds. Cuttings are taken from existing banana plants and nurtured into yet more banana plants from which cuttings will eventually be taken et cetera et cetera et cetera.

The book would have benefited tremendously with the addition of more pictures and maps, plus a list of every known banana type and the odds of anyone getting his or her hands on one. Although the author mentions various banana varieties, he typically does not show you what they look like. Color plates of the top bananas (pun intended) along with their region of origin in the caption would have enabled a further grasp of how different some bananas really are from others. That creamy purple Tahitian one is something I'd like to check out. Sounds tasty. Wish I knew...

United States on Oct 27, 2009

Art Is Life: Narrative non-fiction, as a technique, appeals so directly to readers that it can be used to reveal the plight of almost any animal or plant, such as America's favorite fruit, as we find out in Dan Koeppel's, Banana, The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World (Plume, 2008.) Without this book who would know that this popular fruit is in danger of disappearing because of a disease? Koeppel does a great job presenting the overlooked history of a fruit common to our grocery stores and corner markets. Most of the book focuses on the single variety of banana available in North American and European supermarkets, and provides a good overview of different banana varieties used in Africa and Asia as local food staples, and how these varieties are threatened by plant diseases. The book also delves into the historical perspective of "Banana Republics," controlled and manipulated by the powerful banana corporations in the early-mid 20th and 21st Centuries.

Koeppel's book illustrates the value of narrative non-fiction in presenting history and science at street level. As one reader remarked, "I learned more geography and science from this book than I did in high school, though I must...

United States on Oct 24, 2009