Banana Republic

No one’s going to make a movie starring Daniel Day Lewis that details in haunting fashion the rise of a fruit magnate in the the early 1900s. But a journalist who writes for Popular Science might draft a book about how banana plantations have shaped our modern political and economic structures using many of the same ruthless methods for which oil companies are famous. Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, by Dan Koeppel is my favorite idea for a book that I haven’t yet read.

Were I an illustrator, I’d draw an image of the topless Chiquita banana girl but with many limbs, reaching out across an antique map of the West Indies, Central and South America. You’ll just have to imagine.

Tags: Food, Sustainable Living