Will I love Fordlandia?

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.