Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
Condition: SECONDHAND
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.
Author: Greg Grandin
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 432
In 1927, Henry Ford, the founder of the famous motor company and the richest man in the world, bought a 5,000 square-mile tract of land in the Brazilian Amazon. There he was going to build a rubber plantation. To the unkempt rainforest he would bring the principles of mass production: order, efficiency and productivity. He would harness the river itself in order to transplant capitalist civilisation to the dark heart of the jungle. But Ford wanted more than just rubber. Across the United States, small-town America was giving way to growing cities, consumerism and crass, brash new society. Ford wanted to create in the Amazon an America in his own image: Fordlandia, full of neat houses, straight roads and restrained Puritanism. By 1945 it was abandoned in ruins. Fordlandia is the powerful, never-before-told fable of the pride and arrogance of the man who thought he alone could tame the Amazon. Filled with clash and contradiction, it is the battle between industrialised capitalism and the raw power of nature; it is the struggle too within Ford himself, the man who despised the new America that he himself had set in motion, who spent twenty years and several fortunes on his Amazonian dream, yet never set foot inside it. Superbly researched and grippingly told, Greg Grandin portrays a man suffering the grand delusion that the forces of capitalism, once released, might then be contained. Selected as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2009 by the New York Times. 'Fascinating.haunting.Conrad's Heart of Darkness resonates on every page.' New York Times 'A genuinely readable history recounted with a novelist's sense of pace and an eye for character.engrossingly enjoyable.' Los Angeles Times 'Magic happens when a gifted historian and master storyteller finds a treasure trove of untapped materials to exploit. And Greg Grandin's book on Fordlandia is simply magical.' David Nasaw, author of Andrew Carnegie
Author: Greg Grandin
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 432
In 1927, Henry Ford, the founder of the famous motor company and the richest man in the world, bought a 5,000 square-mile tract of land in the Brazilian Amazon. There he was going to build a rubber plantation. To the unkempt rainforest he would bring the principles of mass production: order, efficiency and productivity. He would harness the river itself in order to transplant capitalist civilisation to the dark heart of the jungle. But Ford wanted more than just rubber. Across the United States, small-town America was giving way to growing cities, consumerism and crass, brash new society. Ford wanted to create in the Amazon an America in his own image: Fordlandia, full of neat houses, straight roads and restrained Puritanism. By 1945 it was abandoned in ruins. Fordlandia is the powerful, never-before-told fable of the pride and arrogance of the man who thought he alone could tame the Amazon. Filled with clash and contradiction, it is the battle between industrialised capitalism and the raw power of nature; it is the struggle too within Ford himself, the man who despised the new America that he himself had set in motion, who spent twenty years and several fortunes on his Amazonian dream, yet never set foot inside it. Superbly researched and grippingly told, Greg Grandin portrays a man suffering the grand delusion that the forces of capitalism, once released, might then be contained. Selected as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2009 by the New York Times. 'Fascinating.haunting.Conrad's Heart of Darkness resonates on every page.' New York Times 'A genuinely readable history recounted with a novelist's sense of pace and an eye for character.engrossingly enjoyable.' Los Angeles Times 'Magic happens when a gifted historian and master storyteller finds a treasure trove of untapped materials to exploit. And Greg Grandin's book on Fordlandia is simply magical.' David Nasaw, author of Andrew Carnegie
Description
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.
Author: Greg Grandin
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 432
In 1927, Henry Ford, the founder of the famous motor company and the richest man in the world, bought a 5,000 square-mile tract of land in the Brazilian Amazon. There he was going to build a rubber plantation. To the unkempt rainforest he would bring the principles of mass production: order, efficiency and productivity. He would harness the river itself in order to transplant capitalist civilisation to the dark heart of the jungle. But Ford wanted more than just rubber. Across the United States, small-town America was giving way to growing cities, consumerism and crass, brash new society. Ford wanted to create in the Amazon an America in his own image: Fordlandia, full of neat houses, straight roads and restrained Puritanism. By 1945 it was abandoned in ruins. Fordlandia is the powerful, never-before-told fable of the pride and arrogance of the man who thought he alone could tame the Amazon. Filled with clash and contradiction, it is the battle between industrialised capitalism and the raw power of nature; it is the struggle too within Ford himself, the man who despised the new America that he himself had set in motion, who spent twenty years and several fortunes on his Amazonian dream, yet never set foot inside it. Superbly researched and grippingly told, Greg Grandin portrays a man suffering the grand delusion that the forces of capitalism, once released, might then be contained. Selected as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2009 by the New York Times. 'Fascinating.haunting.Conrad's Heart of Darkness resonates on every page.' New York Times 'A genuinely readable history recounted with a novelist's sense of pace and an eye for character.engrossingly enjoyable.' Los Angeles Times 'Magic happens when a gifted historian and master storyteller finds a treasure trove of untapped materials to exploit. And Greg Grandin's book on Fordlandia is simply magical.' David Nasaw, author of Andrew Carnegie
Author: Greg Grandin
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 432
In 1927, Henry Ford, the founder of the famous motor company and the richest man in the world, bought a 5,000 square-mile tract of land in the Brazilian Amazon. There he was going to build a rubber plantation. To the unkempt rainforest he would bring the principles of mass production: order, efficiency and productivity. He would harness the river itself in order to transplant capitalist civilisation to the dark heart of the jungle. But Ford wanted more than just rubber. Across the United States, small-town America was giving way to growing cities, consumerism and crass, brash new society. Ford wanted to create in the Amazon an America in his own image: Fordlandia, full of neat houses, straight roads and restrained Puritanism. By 1945 it was abandoned in ruins. Fordlandia is the powerful, never-before-told fable of the pride and arrogance of the man who thought he alone could tame the Amazon. Filled with clash and contradiction, it is the battle between industrialised capitalism and the raw power of nature; it is the struggle too within Ford himself, the man who despised the new America that he himself had set in motion, who spent twenty years and several fortunes on his Amazonian dream, yet never set foot inside it. Superbly researched and grippingly told, Greg Grandin portrays a man suffering the grand delusion that the forces of capitalism, once released, might then be contained. Selected as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2009 by the New York Times. 'Fascinating.haunting.Conrad's Heart of Darkness resonates on every page.' New York Times 'A genuinely readable history recounted with a novelist's sense of pace and an eye for character.engrossingly enjoyable.' Los Angeles Times 'Magic happens when a gifted historian and master storyteller finds a treasure trove of untapped materials to exploit. And Greg Grandin's book on Fordlandia is simply magical.' David Nasaw, author of Andrew Carnegie
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City