Book cover of Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City

Book description

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Greg Grandin comes the stunning, never before told story of the quixotic attempt to recreate small-town America in the heart of the Amazon

In 1927, Henry Ford, the richest man in the world, bought a tract of land twice the size of Delaware in the Brazilian…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Fordlandia as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I'm a sucker for stories of billionaire hubris, and this is as good as they get. You know from the start that Ford’s project is doomed, and yet his grand ambition and folly string you along.

I also love that Grandin smuggles in a sharp critique of capitalism: Fordlandia may have failed, but Ford’s vision of production, turning human beings into widgets, lives on.

Although Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts allude to it, I had no idea until I read Greg Grandin’s book that Henry Ford attempted to extend his auto industry empire into the Amazon by building the company town of Fordlandia in the Brazilian jungle. I am fascinated by the suspenseful narrative Grandin creates around Ford’s ultimately disastrous failure at creating his own rubber-producing teetotaling town.

From Dora's list on cities and urban decline.

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The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

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