The History of Banana: How One Fruit Changed Governments and Global Trade

In 1899, a fruit company quietly became more powerful than the governments surrounding it. United Fruit Company owned railroads, ports, and millions of acres across Central America — and when a Guatemalan president tried to reclaim unused land, the CIA overthrew him. This is the real story of the banana empire: the wealth, the labor system, and the political machinery that made one fruit reshape governments and global trade.