Review by Choice Review
The banana is not only America's most popular fruit; it is the primary food source in some regions of the world, such as parts of Africa and the South Pacific. It exists in a number of varieties, of which the Cavendish is the sweet delicacy enjoyed in Europe and the US. The banana, however, has a tragic flaw: it is both seedless and sexless. New banana plants emerge from a bulb-like structure under the soil called the corm. This critical structure is particularly susceptible to Panama disease, which is currently decimating Cavendish crops in Southeast Asia. When the disease reaches Central America, it will inexorably destroy the Cavendish crops there also. Because of the fruit's reproductive structure, though, alternatives will be extraordinarily difficult to develop through conventional breeding. Writer Koeppel sees biotechnical engineering as the likely savior of the fruit. In addition to documenting the banana's reproductive travails, Koeppel narrates the tragic story of American imperialism in Central and South America, especially the rise of the United Fruit Company, which gained hegemony in the region by establishing banana "republics" with pliant dictators, by confiscating large tracts of peasant land, and by ruthlessly suppressing and oppressing local workers. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers. D. M. Gilbert Maine Maritime Academy
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Taken for granted as a supermarket staple and praised as an especially healthy food, the banana reigns as one of the world's most popular edibles. So the current threat from an insidious blight devastating the world's banana crop becomes a matter of alarm and concern for everyone. The fact that bananas found on fruit stands are of a single variety, the Cavendish, whose unique ripening cycle and transportability have crowded virtually all other cultivars out of the trade, amplifies the menace. Current research on some varieties of Pacific bananas that may be not only blight resistant but also more nutritional offers a glimmer of hope. Koeppel traces banana history, explaining how the worldwide banana market rests on a long history of rapacious, repressive, and predatory agricultural-industrial practices. These have so dominated the countries nurturing this crop that they have spawned their own unique form of government: the banana republic. Despite a chatty and self-referential style, Koeppel conveys a fascinating and useful wealth of banana arcana.--Knoblauch, Mark Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The world's most humble fruit has caused inordinate damage to nature and man, and Popular Science journalist Koeppel (To See Every Bird on Earth) embarks on an intelligent, chock-a-block sifting through the havoc. Seedless, sexless bananas evolved from a wild inedible fruit first cultivated in Southeast Asia, and was probably the "apple" that got Adam and Eve in trouble in the Garden of Eden. From there the fruit traveled to Africa and across the Pacific, arriving on U.S. shores probably with the Europeans in the 15th century. However, the history of the banana turned sinister as American businessmen caught on to the marketability of this popular, highly perishable fruit then grown in Jamaica. Thanks to the building of the railroad through Costa Rica by the turn of the century, the United Fruit company flourished in Central America, its tentacles extending into all facets of government and industry, toppling "banana republics" and igniting labor wars. Meanwhile, the Gros Michel variety was annihilated by a fungus called Panama disease (Sigatoka), which today threatens the favored Cavendish, as Koeppel sounds the alarm, shuttling to genetics-engineering labs from Honduras to Belgium. His sage, informative study poses the question fairly whether it's time for consumers to reverse a century of strife and exploitation epitomized by the purchase of one banana. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Nature and science writer Koeppel (To See Every Bird on Earth, 2005) chronicles the banana's history, from early cultivation to modern popularization, and suggests ways to save it from extinction. Expanded from an article originally published in Popular Science, the narrative covers the fruit's biblical roots (that forbidden treat Eve plucked may not have been an apple), the history of exploitative "banana republics" and the fruit's present precarious state. Ancient hunter-gatherers probably ate the subterranean part of the banana plant, the corm; the wild fruit, itself was inedible, with rock-hard seeds. Cultivation of mutated forms eventually yielded sweeter, bigger fruit, and the crop became a staple throughout Southeast Asia, Malaysia, southern China and the Philippines. Over thousands of years, the fruit crossed the Pacific to Africa, where the word for "food" and "banana" is the same in many regions. Once bananas arrived in the New World--via Polynesian sailors--they soon evolved from a luxury food into a necessity, as entrepreneurs figured out how to grow them in Central America andtransport them by ship and rail in refrigerated containers that kept them fresh for the huge U.S. market. United Fruit (later Chiquita), founded in 1899, entered with other companies into an ever-deepening cycle of exploitation, violence and revolution in Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala. Tracing the banana's journey, Koeppel jumps around somewhat breathlessly. He travels from the genetic labs of Leuven, Belgium, to India's bustling markets, which sell more banana varieties than anywhere else. At his local Whole Foods in Los Angeles, he samples the exotic Caribbean-grown Lacatan variety, which he believes will take over the world. A tenacious blight called Panama Disease threatens today's ubiquitous Cavendish banana, which gained ascendancy after the Gros Michel variety died out in the 1960s. The author crams an awful lot of information into brief chapters, but his evident interest in the subject will keep readers engaged. A lively, well-modulated survey. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
