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

3.0

Evidently, there was a lot to learn about the banana trade as I realized early on in this bio of Sam Zemurray aka "The Banana Man" due to his wealth and power in the banana trade. I didn't know anything about bananas except they were tropical. This book tells the story of Zemurray's immigration to the United States and how he created an empire from an initial purchase of ripe bananas. His power was so great, he could even topple governments in Central American if he didn't like how they dealt with his banana business. I doubt I'll ever read the word banana as much in the books I read in the rest of my life as much as I saw it on the page in this one. I can now talk about banana history if anyone ever brings up the topic, ha.