 |
|
|
|
|
Banana |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Book: Paperback | 8.26 x 5.23in | 304 pages | ISBN 9780452290082 | 30 Dec 2008 | Plume | 18 - AND UP |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In the vein of the bestselling Salt and Cod, a gripping chronicle of the myth, mystery, and uncertain fate of the world’s most popular fruit
In this fascinating and surprising exploration of the banana’s 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 Eden—examining scholars’ belief that Eve’s “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 banana’s path to the present, ultimately—and most alarmingly—taking us to banana plantations across the globe that are being destroyed by a fast-moving blight, with no cure in sight—and to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit.
Read Dan Koeppel's posts on the Penguin Blog.
“Clear, engaging…admirable…part historical narrative and part pop-science adventure.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
|
|
|
Email Alerts
To keep up-to-date, input your email address, and we will contact you on publication
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
