JUNE 12, 2009
Hail Fordlandia
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 NONFICTION |
In 1927, the richest man in the world, Henry Ford, bought a rubber plantation in Brazil — it was the size of Tennessee. Ford’s intent was to control rubber farming for tire production, but the project quickly expanded into new territory. In Fordlandia, NYU professor Greg Grandin describes the disastrous fallout.
Grandin travels to the abandoned site, sifts through forgotten archives, and describes Ford’s grander ambition: to introduce Midwestern values to one of the wildest spots on earth. The industrialist brought golf courses, indoor plumbing, movie theaters, and square dances to the local population. He also tried to enforce Prohibition. But the Brazilians weren’t, by and large, having any of it. Grandin’s book is an adventure that doubles as a parable about the limits of economic and social expansionism: a story that has particular resonance today.
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Fordlandia (Metropolitan; hardcover; 432 pages)
