Book Review

Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States. By John Soluri. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. xiii+321 pages. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. Paper $21.95.
Although John Soluri did not frame Banana Cultures along the lines of Arjun Appadurai's seminal work The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986), the book fits Appadurai's model to a "T." Banana Cultures is all about the social life and cultural perspectives of bananas, the banana industry in Honduras, and markets in the United States. In fact, Soluri states that the book's "message" is to "acknowledge the dynamic relationships between production and consumption, between people and nonhuman forms of life, and between cultures and economies" (p. ix). That goal is met in a work that is a Central American, agricultural, corporate, environmental, transnational, popular culture, labor, political, and gender history (and a history of science and technology) of the banana industry. Thus it will be of great value for scholars and courses (history, geography, anthropology) interested in any of those interdisciplinary areas. Many readers will appreciate Soluri's blend of archival research and personal interviews with former plantation workers, and will enjoy the analysis of banana marketing that used "Miss Chiquita," Carmen Miranda, and familiar advertising jingles.	1
In tracking these multiple angles, the book tells a more complete story of Honduran bananas, not by being an "environmental history of," but by relating how environmental transformations and changing "agroecological conditions" were an essential part of the larger story (p. 247). It also fills the void in Latin American banana historiography that has concentrated on Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Ecuador, even though Honduras supplied more bananas to the North American market. References to some of that literature on the other countries, however, are surprisingly missing, as is analysis of marketing of bananas in Canada (where the book's maps show they were also sent), which, had the author included, would have expanded the transnational aspect of the book. In meeting the high U.S. demand, Honduras' banana-producing North Coast became prone to Panama and Sigatoka diseases—typical for plantation agriculture, but altering production, packaging, and marketing strategies. The book goes into great detail on how the United Fruit Company (UFC) invested in herbicides, pesticides, nematicides, and fertilizers to control the pathogens, and relates the ecological and socio-cultural consequences that followed.	2
Soluri seeks to downplay this UFC presence, however, by documenting the agency of local small-scale banana growers. While this is a worthy revision based on the number of "non-company" farms, he falls short in proving their "agency." As evidenced in the book, the smaller-scale growers were completely dependent on UFC and Standard Fruit railroads for getting bananas to port, on the companies' strict contracts for buying bananas, and for shipping and marketing in the United States.	3
But that point does not distract greatly from what will be a standard-bearer in banana plantation history for years to come. The book's many maps (two of which inexcusably misspell Colombia) and UFC photographs nicely illustrate the book. Lastly, the book's final chapter comparing bananas with other export commodities (sugar, coffee, California citrus) ties many themes together and effectively shows how bananas fit into "agricultural commodity webs" (p. 218)—analysis that is useful for our continued understanding of globalized markets and their many layered effects.	4
Sterling Evans is associate professor and Canada Research Chair in history at Brandon University in western Manitoba. He is the author of The Green Republic: A Conservation History of Costa Rica (Texas, 1999), and Bound in Twine: A Transnational History of the Henequen-Wheat Complex for Yucatan and the American and Canadian Plains, 1880–1950 (Texas A&M, forthcoming).

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