A review by miguelf
The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen

3.0

This Horatio Alger type biography becomes interesting when it comes to the adjacent stories that surround the life of its protagonist. The background on the CIA involvement in the Guatemala coup of '54, the assistance post WWII Israeli transport to Palestine, and other associated characters seem like they would make for much more interesting reading than what's yet another pulling-his-way-up-with-his-bootstraps American "success story". Of course in telling this success story there's not much in the way of going into much detail on the involvement in essentially enslaving hundreds of thousands of slave laborers in Central America so that he could sit atop the bulk load of the profits. The writing and research are good - but I don't feel very enriched about knowing about this minor robber baron, nor does he come across as an appealing character in any way.