Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

In the vein of Mark Kurlansky's bestselling Salt and Cod, a gripping chronicle of the myth, mystery, and uncertain fate of the worlds most popular fruit In this fascinating and surprising exploration of the bananas history, cultural significance, and endangered future, award-winning journalist Dan Koeppel gives readers plenty of food for thought. Fast-paced and highly entertaining, Banana takes us from jungle to supermarket, from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables around the world. We begin in the Garden of Edenexamining scholars belief that Eves apple was actually a banana and travel to early-twentieth-century Central America, where aptly named banana republics rose and fell over the crop, while the companies now known as Chiquita and Dole conquered the marketplace. Koeppel then chronicles the bananas path to the present, ultimatelyand most alarminglytaking us to banana plantations across the globe that are being destroyed by a fast-moving blight, with no cure in sightand to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the worlds most beloved fruit.