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Fordlandia

The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City

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Fordlandia

Written by: Greg Grandin
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
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In 1927, Henry Ford, the richest man in the world, bought a tract of land twice the size of Delaware in the Brazilian Amazon. His intention was to grow rubber, but the project rapidly evolved into a more ambitious bid to export America itself. Fordlandia, as the settlement was called, soon became the site of an epic clash. On one side was the lean, austere car magnate; on the other, the Amazon, the most complex ecological system on the planet. Indigenous workers rejected Ford's midwestern Puritanism, turning the place into a ribald tropical boomtown. And his efforts to apply a system of regimented mass production to the Amazon's diversity resulted in a rash environmental assault that foreshadowed many of the threats laying waste to the rain forest today.

More than a parable of one man’s arrogant attempt to force his will on the natural world, Greg Grandin's Fordlandia is "a quintessentially American fable". (Time).

©2009 Greg Grandin (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC
Business & Careers South America United States Export City
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" Fordlandia is … a genuinely readable history recounted with a novelist’s sense of pace and an eye for character. It is a significant contribution [that is] grossly enjoyable." ( Los Angeles Times)

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More than rubber in Brazil

Covers most of Ford’s life, from his accomplishments to his many dismal failures. This great man had many blind spots. Was surprised to find a whole section on Diego Rivera (his 27-panel Detroit Industry Murals painted while in the US in 1933, based on visits to Ford’s factories). Also interesting: Ford asked to build an airstrip on his land in Brazil to hide aircraft in WWII.

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