The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King [Paperback]

Named a Best Book of the Year by theSan Francisco ChronicleandThe Times-Picayune

The fascinating untold tale of Samuel Zemurray, the self-made banana mogul who went from penniless roadside banana peddler to kingmaker and capitalist revolutionary

When Samuel Zemurray arrived in America in 1891, he was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. Working his way up from a roadside fruit peddler to conquering the United Fruit Company, Zemurray became a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures.

Zemurray lived one of the great untold stories of the last hundred years. Starting with nothing but a cart of freckled bananas, he built a sprawling empire of banana cowboys, mercenary soldiers, Honduran peasants, CIA agents, and American statesmen. From hustling on the docks of New Orleans to overthrowing Central American governments and precipitating the bloody thirty-six-year Guatemalan civil war, the Banana Man lived a monumental and sometimes dastardly life. Rich Cohen's brilliant historical profileThe Fish That Ate the Whaleunveils Zemurray as a hidden power broker, driven by an indomitable will to succeed.

Rich Cohen books constitute a genre unto themselves: pungent, breezy, vividly written psychodramas. The New York Times Book Review

Lively and entertaining. The Boston Globe

This biography of the complex and often contradictory figure of Zemurray is Cohen's most engaging and entertaining book to date. Chicago Tribune Printers Row Journal

This is a rollicking but brilliantly researched book about one of the most fascinating characters of the twentieth century. I grew lãÉ