BANANAS!

June 22, 2008.  Having read "Bananas, How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World" by Peter Chapman provided new insight as to this seemingly ubiquitous and inexpensive exotic fruit now consumed by Americans more than apples and oranges combined!  The banana is a relatively new to these northern climates, at least in mass amounts. For most of the twentieth century , United Fruit had a monopoly of the banana industry. The fact that the banana is basically a clone/grown from sucklings makes it particularly susceptible to disease and some speculate the banana will perish by 2013, whilst others give it longer (but not much). There are hundreds of bananas. Some are red, some have an apple consistency, some are straight, but only certain ones are marketed. The initial banana that United Fruit sold was "Gros Michel" which is actually bigger than what we enjoy now (the Cavendish).  Sadly , the Gros Michel met with disease (Panama disease) so that by around 1960 , the more disease resistant banana (Cavendish) was marketed instead (some claim it is less tastey than the Gros Michel). Sadly there is no current back up banana for the Cavendish, but studies are being done to try to remedy this.  Building railroads in the countries that became "banana republics" was a way that United Fruit gained an unique inroad in the business. When governments did not cooperate, invasions and even coups occurred as spearheaded by United Fruit (e.g. Honduras and Guatamela). It is stated that the success of the Guatamela coup encouraged the Bay of Pigs (wherein United Fruit fleet were involved), which ultimately resulted in the Cuban Missile crisis. Beyond political repercussions, branding and propaganda/public relations were pioneered by the multinational company of United Fruit .  Critical eyes and earthquakes and hurricanes in the 1970s led to United Fruit's demise. Chiquita is now the remnant of United Fruit (Chiquita being a branding tool used earlier by United Fruit , along with  Carmen Miranda). 

There is also another book that sounds interesting on this same subject but covers more of the biology of the fruit along with political aspects. It is called "Bananas. The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World" by Dan Koeppel.