A review by ehmannky
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel
informative
fast-paced
3.75
1 - It's absolutely wild how much pain and destruction a couple of fruit companies have caused on this earth. And how much financial and political power they have wielded in the United States and continue to wield.
2 - I think it's pretty depressing that this book came out in 2007--nearly 2 decades ago--and none of the problems regarding the monoculture of bananas, the problems with corporations owning GMOs for food billions of people rely on for food, the diseases in banana fruits, etc. have been resolved. I am now pretty convinced that, thanks to capitalism and greed, we are going to lose bananas within the next few decades.
3 - I will cut Koeppel some slack because this book is nearly 2 decades old so perhaps his beliefs regarding this have changed, but I thought it was kind of wild that he puts so much pressure on individuals to buy the right (fair trade) bananas and to take this into our own hands when the answer is so clearly that the U.S. government needs to take a hard line with these companies and mandate political changes to make this happen. Like, you can't individual choice your way out of a problem caused by companies so powerful that the United States government does what it can to please them.
4 - I want to eat the fancy bananas described in this book soooooo badly.
2 - I think it's pretty depressing that this book came out in 2007--nearly 2 decades ago--and none of the problems regarding the monoculture of bananas, the problems with corporations owning GMOs for food billions of people rely on for food, the diseases in banana fruits, etc. have been resolved. I am now pretty convinced that, thanks to capitalism and greed, we are going to lose bananas within the next few decades.
3 - I will cut Koeppel some slack because this book is nearly 2 decades old so perhaps his beliefs regarding this have changed, but I thought it was kind of wild that he puts so much pressure on individuals to buy the right (fair trade) bananas and to take this into our own hands when the answer is so clearly that the U.S. government needs to take a hard line with these companies and mandate political changes to make this happen. Like, you can't individual choice your way out of a problem caused by companies so powerful that the United States government does what it can to please them.
4 - I want to eat the fancy bananas described in this book soooooo badly.