Winner, George Perkins Marsh Award for Best Book in Environmental History, American Society for Environmental History, 2007
Bananas, the most frequently consumed fresh fruit in the United States, have been linked to Miss Chiquita and Carmen Miranda, "banana republics," and Banana Republic clothing stores—everything from exotic kitsch, to Third World dictatorships, to middle-class fashion. But how did the rise in banana consumption in the United States affect the banana-growing regions of Central America? In this lively, interdisciplinary study, John Soluri integrates agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history to trace the symbiotic growth of the export banana industry in Honduras and the consumer mass market in the United States.
Beginning in the 1870s when bananas first appeared in the U.S. marketplace, Soluri examines the tensions between the small-scale growers, who dominated the trade in the early years, and the shippers. He then shows how rising demand led to changes in production that resulted in the formation of major agribusinesses, spawned international migrations, and transformed great swaths of the Honduran environment into monocultures susceptible to plant disease epidemics that in turn changed Central American livelihoods. Soluri also looks at labor practices and workers' lives, changing gender roles on the banana plantations, the effects of pesticides on the Honduran environment and people, and the mass marketing of bananas to consumers in the United States. His multifaceted account of a century of banana production and consumption adds an important chapter to the history of Honduras, as well as to the larger history of globalization and its effects on rural peoples, local economies, and biodiversity.

Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States

History

Soluri, John

Americas

University of Texas Press

Creatures of Fashion: Animals, Global Markets, and the Transformation of Patagonia (Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges)

Today, the mention of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego conjures images of idyllic landscapes untouched by globalization. Creatures of Fashion upends this, revealing how the exploitation of animals--terrestrial and marine, domesticated and wild, living and dead--was central to the region's transformation from Indigenous lands into the national territories of Argentina and Chile. Drawing on evidence from archives and digital repositories, John Soluri traces the circulation of furs and fibers to explore how the power of fashion stretched far beyond Europe's houses of haute couture to entangle the fates of Indigenous hunters, migrant workers, and textile manufacturers with those of fur seals, guanacos, and sheep at the "end of the world." From the nineteenth-century rise of commercial hunting to twentieth-century sheep ranching to contemporary conservation-based tourism, Soluri's narrative explains how struggles for control over the production of commodities and the reproduction of animals drove the social and environmental changes that tied Patagonia to global markets, empires, and wildlife conservation movements. By exposing seams in national territories and global markets knit together by force, this book provides perspectives and analyses vital for understanding contemporary conflicts over mass consumption, the conservation of biodiversity, and struggles for environmental justice in Patagonia and beyond.

Business & Money

Economics

The University of North Carolina Press

Review\nAn historian by profession, John Soluri has written a book that defies disciplinary pigeonholing. This ambitious treatise on ‘banana cultures' links Honduran production with North American consumption, ecumenically drawing on archival records and oral histories as well as the burgeoning field of agroecology and the interpretive methodologies of cultural studies. . . . Soluri has accomplished what I thought impossible: writing a new and innovative book on one of the most-mined topics in Central American history. This book makes an important contribution to the field by connecting banana production and consumption, and its accessible style makes it well suited for classroom use. -- Edward F. Fischer ― Journal of Latin American Studies\n[Soluri] provides a well-written, balanced, and multifaceted perspective on the banana. . . . Banana Cultures leaves the reader with an understanding of the banana export trade that combines history and the botany and agriculture of the banana with a discussion of production, economics, and the changing culture of consumption in the United States. The reader will never take a banana for granted again. -- Marcus B. Griffin ― Gastronomica\nEmphasizing a dimension of banana production mentioned in passing by others—the ecological challenges posed by monoculture farming—Soluri offers a major rewriting of the industry's history. His eminently readable account starts on the north coast of Honduras, one of the first regions incorporated into the banana trade. . . . [Soluri's account] is significant both for its rethinking of industry history and its skillful integration of the material, ecological, and symbolic aspects of banana production and consumption. In sum, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in the production and social life of everyday commodities. -- Mark Moberg ― American Historical Review\n[A] splendid transnational history…this is a path-breaking study that makes a major contribution to agroecology and to the history of business strategies, agricultural science and technology, work processes, and the marketing and consumption of tropical commodities in North America. ― The Americas\n"[Banana Cultures] will be a standard-bearer in banana plantation history for years to come." ― Environmental History\nSoluri’s narrative, well written and informed by popular culture and oral histories, is also very engaging for readers of any background. By providing a comparative perspective in his last chapter, he also highlights the implications of his approach and points to some other commodities, such as coffee and sugar, that could benefit from his approach. -- Felipe Cruz ― Not Even Past\nSoluri’s volume remains distinctive for its sweeping consideration of the social, ecological and symbolic contexts of banana production and consumption...Banana Cultures remains essential reading on the social, cultural and ecological dimensions of the fruit and firms that transformed much of Central America. ― Journal of Latin American Studies Published On: 2021-12-27\nSoluri has taken an already classic and wonderfully accessible work and further enhanced it by bookending it with these two new thought-provoking and insightful essays. In doing so, he has only strengthened an already pioneering work. ― The Americas Published On: 2022-07-15\nBananas, the most frequently consumed fresh fruit in the United States, have been linked to Miss Chiquita and Carmen Miranda, "banana republics," and Banana Republic clothing stores—everything from exotic kitsch, to Third World dictatorships, to middle-class fashion. But how did the rise in banana consumption in the United States affect the banana-growing regions of Central America? In this lively, interdisciplinary study, John Soluri integrates agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history to trace the symbiotic growth of the export banana industry in Honduras and the consumer mass market in the United States. 
Beginning in the

El poder discursivo de la metáfora "república bananera" hace fácil pasar por alto las diversas maneras en las que el monopolio capitalista dentro de los Estados Unidos dio forma a la historia del comercio del banano en el siglo XX. Siguiendo al banano en su viaje internacional, John Soluri cruza, en esta obra, los límites de varios campos académicos para escribir una historia enriquecida por las perspectivas de biólogos y geógrafos, además de historiadores culturales, ambientales y sociales e incorpora una amplia gama de fuentes al incluir datos de censos manuscritos de Honduras, expedientes de las compañías fruteras, investigaciones científicas publicadas e inéditas, correspondencia entre los gobiernos de Honduras y de los EE.UU., y testimonios orales y efímeros de la cultura de masas de los EE.UU.

Culturas bananeras: Producción, consumo y transformaciones socioambientales (Spanish Edition)

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Siglo del Hombre Editores

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Books by Soluri, John

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Soluri, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States

Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States

Creatures of Fashion: Animals, Global Markets, and the Transformation of Patagonia (Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges)

Creatures of Fashion: Animals, Global Markets, and the Transformation of Patagonia (Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges)

Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States

Culturas bananeras: Producción, consumo y transformaciones socioambientales (Spanish Edition)

Culturas bananeras: Producción, consumo y transformaciones socioambientales (Spanish Edition)