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The Fish That Ate the Whale
Rich Cohen
The Life and Times of America's Banana King
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
June 2012
On Sale: June 5, 2012
288 pages
ISBN: 0374299277
EAN: 9780374299279
Kindle: B0071VOLN8
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was
tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest
house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among
the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he
worked as a fruit peddler, a banana hauler, a dockside
hustler, and a plantation owner. He battled and conquered
the United Fruit Company, becoming a symbol of the best and
worst of the United States: proof that America is the land
of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate
pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his
adventures. In Latin America, when people shouted “Yankee,
go home!” it was men like Zemurray they had in mind. Rich Cohen’s brilliant historical profile The
Fish That Ate the Whale unveils Zemurray as a hidden
kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary, driven by an
indomitable will to succeed. Known as El Amigo, the Gringo,
or simply Z, the Banana Man lived one of the great untold
stories of the last hundred years. Starting with nothing but
a cart of freckled bananas, he built a sprawling empire of
banana cowboys, mercenary soldiers, Honduran peasants, CIA
agents, and American statesmen. From hustling on the docks
of New Orleans to overthrowing Central American governments,
from feuding with Huey Long to working with the Dulles
brothers, Zemurray emerges as an unforgettable figure,
connected to the birth of modern American diplomacy, public
relations, business, and war—a monumental life that reads
like a parable of the American dream.
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