Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: bananas. The biography is on the life of Samuel Zemurray, the notorious “banana king” of United Fruit whose pursuit of wealth and product led to political destabilization in central America and the Caribbean.
It’s a shame that Samuel Zemurray has such an interesting story and yet only a so-so biographer.
Rich Cohen takes on compelling subjects such as Zemurray and Albert Hicks (The Last Pirate of New York) but he tells their respective tales in such a slipshod and uninspired manner that it makes for an infuriating read despite how interesting their lives were.
Cohen makes it readable; I’ll give that much to him. He definitely doesn’t bog us down in needless detail on Zemurray’s life and the circumstances of his reign. I got a good sense of who he was and how his machinations impacted the lives of millions, usually for worse.
But as there aren’t many first sources on the man, Cohen likes to interject with his own musings, which are unwanted and, sometimes, inappropriate.
On a certain level, it’s impossible to write a completely objective biography. Every biographer brings a story, brings an angle, brings their own biases. But one can politely and professionally distance themselves effectively enough to tell the tale. Rich Cohen does the opposite. So while I enjoyed large parts of this and found it easy to keep up with, I still wish this was a more polished, more focused work.
If you want to read more on how US imperialism protected capitalist interests overseas, please check out the far superior Gangsters of Capitalism.