Summary of Rich Cohen's The Fish That Ate the Whale

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Sam Zemurray, the man who created the banana, was born in 1877 in the region of western Russia known as Bessarabia. He grew up on a wheat farm in a flat country ringed by hills. He went to America in 1892 to establish himself and send for his family.
#2 Sam was extremely ambitious, and he knew exactly how to get ahead. He believed in staying close to the action, and in learning from those who had already made it. He was simple, earthy, and he loved Selma, Alabama.
#3 When they had saved some money, many of these men opened stores, which meant moving all that merchandise under a roof in a town along their route. They were careful to only open one store per town, as they worried about attracting the wrong kind of attention.
#4 Sam Zemurray, the man who would become the richest man in the world, was a tin merchant. He was employed by a peddler who was less tin merchant than peddler, sharing a piece of chocolate with the boy. He then decided to travel to Mobile and buy a supply of bananas to bring back to Selma.

Sujets

• Love
• Love (disambiguation)
• History
• Central
• Americas
• South
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 18 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822544307
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Rich Cohen's The Fish That Ate the Whale
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Sam Zemurray, the man who created the banana, was born in 1877 in the region of western Russia known as Bessarabia. He grew up on a wheat farm in a flat country ringed by hills. He went to America in 1892 to establish himself and send for his family.

#2

Sam was extremely ambitious, and he knew exactly how to get ahead. He believed in staying close to the action, and in learning from those who had already made it. He was simple, earthy, and he loved Selma, Alabama.

#3

When they had saved some money, many of these men opened stores, which meant moving all that merchandise under a roof in a town along their route. They were careful to only open one store per town, as they worried about attracting the wrong kind of attention.

#4

Sam Zemurray, the man who would become the richest man in the world, was a tin merchant. He was employed by a peddler who was less tin merchant than peddler, sharing a piece of chocolate with the boy. He then decided to travel to Mobile and buy a supply of bananas to bring back to Selma.

#5

Sam Zemurray, the man who would later become the richest man in the world, went to Mobile, a seedy industrial port, to try and make his fortune. He was a bit of everything: shrewd, but also naïve. He was greedy for information, and he took a room in a seamen’s hotel.

#6

The banana trade was a huge deal in the 1800s, and Sam wanted to learn everything about it. He watched as the workers formed lines that snaked from the deck of the ship down a ramp, and across the pier to the waiting boxcars. Each boxcar was loaded with bananas, and if they passed inspection, they were sent to market.

#7

Sam grew fixated on ripes, recognizing a product where others saw only trash. He was the son of a Russian farmer, and he saw food as something to be valued under a different name.

#8

Zemurray became known as Sam the Banana Man, as he was a salesman of a perishable product. He was a gambler by necessity - he had to be a risk taker, a salesman, and a brawler.

#9

The world of the banana men, which was a world of shipping companies, warehouses, plantations, ripening rooms, loading bays, and docks, had settled into a hierarchy by the end of the nineteenth century. At the top were the owners of the companies, men who sit in boardrooms and trade stock.

#10

Zemurray was a resourceful trader who made his name buying and selling bananas. He had soon made enough money to buy a house and become one of the biggest traffickers in the trade.

#11

Samuel Zemurray, the banana man, took a partner in 1903. He wanted to move into the more respectable precincts of the trade. He needed capital and help, and he found them in Ashbell Hubbard.

#12

The acquisition of Cuyamel Fruit Company, which was founded in the 1890s, was a gamble. With Thatcher Brothers, Zemurray became the owner of steamships. This changed his status immediately.

#13

The banana is a delicious, ripen-able fruit that was first grown in the jungle. It has origins in Southeast Asia, and can thrive in sandy soil, high humidity, high temperatures, and at least 180 inches of rain a year.

#14

The banana is an herb that grows in the tropics. It is outrageously top-heavy and can be felled by a strong wind. It does not grow from a seed but from a cutting.

#15

The banana was introduced to the United States in 1876, when it was displayed at the World Exposition in Philadelphia. It was priced by the slice, each wrapped in foil, at ten cents a pop.

#16

The first banana merchant was Carl Augustus Frank, a German immigrant who lived near the harbor in New York. In the 1860s, Frank was a steward on a Pacific mail ship. He saw bananas growing in the right-of-way along some train tracks, and bought a bunch from a peddler in Aspinwall, Colombia.

#17

The banana trade was booming in 1880, but it could not last. The industry was extremely vulnerable to wind, cold, heat, rain, and disease. The entire supply of many early traders could be wiped out by one bad storm.

#18

Sam Zemurray was a prime example of the American dream. He was a schnorrer, a pushcart nebbish, and he came from nowhere to create a fortune and an archetype. He seemed to strive for the sake of striving.

#19

The story of United Fruit is the tale of three men: Lorenzo Baker, son and grandson of commercial fishermen, who never smiled or laughed; Christopher Columbus, who stumbled upon the Orinoco River in Venezuela in 1498, believing it was one of the rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Eden; and Alexander von Humboldt, who explored the basin of the river in 1800.

#20

The first banana men were extremely risky, but they were able to make a tremendous return. They would sail to Port Antonio, have a glass of planter’s punch, and then light out.

#21

The banana industry was dominated by two men, Andrew Preston and John F. Baker, who would sell bananas across an ever-expanding territory. Preston handled the market, while Baker handled the product. When sales boomed, they decided to expand.

#22

Boston Fruit was a success, but the company kept running into the same wall: supply could not keep up with demand. In 1899, the Year Without Bananas, the company went back to the banks to grow bigger.

#23

By his fiftieth birthday, Minor Keith owned land in six republics on the isthmus, and the hundred-peso note of Costa Rica showed his face: small, dark, and filled with mischief. He had grown monstrously fat.

#24

The railroad made its first run on December 7, 1885.