Fordlandia
The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Davis
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By:
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Greg Grandin
About this listen
In 1927, Henry Ford, the richest man in the world, bought a tract of land twice the size of Delaware in the Brazilian Amazon. His intention was to grow rubber, but the project rapidly evolved into a more ambitious bid to export America itself. Fordlandia, as the settlement was called, soon became the site of an epic clash. On one side was the lean, austere car magnate; on the other, the Amazon, the most complex ecological system on the planet. Indigenous workers rejected Ford's midwestern Puritanism, turning the place into a ribald tropical boomtown. And his efforts to apply a system of regimented mass production to the Amazon's diversity resulted in a rash environmental assault that foreshadowed many of the threats laying waste to the rain forest today.
More than a parable of one man’s arrogant attempt to force his will on the natural world, Greg Grandin's Fordlandia is "a quintessentially American fable". (Time).
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Editorial reviews
Fordlandia is a wide-ranging history not only of Henry Ford’s problem-plagued foray into the Amazonian rainforest, but also of his place in advancing mechanized manufacturing. While the jungle experience did not make a lasting imprint on the Ford Company’s existence, the perfection of assembly-line processes, the invention of machines to replace workers, and Henry Ford’s desire to control all facets of his automobile production process certainly combined to change the way goods are manufactured and life for workers around the world. Jonathan Davis aptly takes listeners through the story as the book first details Henry Ford’s rise to world prominence through the debacle of Fordlandia, and finally to Ford’s legacy of multinational corporations and mechanized labor.
The experience of Fordlandia brings forth Davis’ many skills as a gifted narrator. While his even voice tells the tale, he offers engaging and enjoyable moments as he describes various characters who helped make Ford’s poorly thought-out excursion into virgin rainforest the misery that it was. Davis reads excerpts from the letters botantist Carl LaRue sent to Henry Ford from Brazil, detailing the forlorn existence of the natives who would, supposedly, benefit from Ford’s insistence on a workforce that adhered to his personal Puritan values. Davis also reads the poetry of George Washington Sears, whose work describes a Brazilian workers revolt, and of Elizabeth Bishop, who put the Amazon Rivers untouched beauty into verse.
Mostly though, Davis introduces listeners to the wheelers and dealers who finessed the Brazilian land deal. According to author Grandin, that deal “snookered” the richest man in the world into paying for land he could have gotten for free. Later, Davis voices upper- and mid-level Ford managers who saw opportunities for money and power in time spent at the struggling Amazonian rubber plantation.
Fordlandia has it all: from American ingenuity, pride, wealth, and stubbornness to the tendency of some towards exploitation, greed, and nativism. Davis gives voice to Grandin’s words as he describes that moment in American history when the country changed from being mostly agrarian pioneers to factory workers; When American businessmen and factory owners began looking farther than the shores of the United States and saw income possibilities in foreign countries. Fordlandia ultimately relates how badly Henry Ford’s arrogance was shattered by the natural forces of the jungle: from the building of Cape Cod-style housing in cleared rainforest tracts to insisting on rainforest natives using a factory time clock it simply did not work. Anyone interested in a preview of the U.S. role in Latin America will welcome Grandin’s book and Davis’ narration. Carole Chouinard
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- Unabridged
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Jeffrey Sachs - celebrated economist, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and author of the influential best seller The End of Poverty - disagrees. In his view, poverty is a problem that can be solved. With single-minded determination he has attempted to put into practice his theories about ending extreme poverty, to prove that the world's most destitute people can be lifted onto "the ladder of development."
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Sachs tries hard but the system is not there
- By Amazon Customer on 11-13-15
By: Nina Munk
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Enough
- Why the World's Poorest Starve in An Age of Plenty
- By: Roger Thurow, Scott Kilman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than 30 years, humankind has known how to grow enough food to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet while the Green Revolution succeeded in South America and Asia, it never got to Africa. More than 9 million people every year die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases every yearmost of them in Africa and most of them children. More die of hunger in Africa than from AIDS and malaria combined. Now, an impending global food crisis threatens to make things worse.
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It's Time For Us To Be More Compassionate
- By James on 07-18-10
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A Shorter History of Australia
- By: Geoffrey Blainey
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events which have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport, the suspicion of the tall poppy, the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbourne, new and old homelands, the conflicts of war abroad and race at home, the importance of technology, the recognition of our Aboriginal past and Native Title.
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Just couldn't stand the paternalism
- By Matthew on 04-02-14
By: Geoffrey Blainey
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Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
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The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
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Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
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The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
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The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
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No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
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Banana
- The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
- By: Dan Koeppel
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
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Banana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist) - ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world's most beloved fruit.
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Very Good Book - History, Science, and Economics
- By Jose on 11-08-17
By: Dan Koeppel
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Chocolate Wars
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- By: Deborah Cadbury
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- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
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With a cast of characters that wouldnt be out of place in a Victorian novel, Chocolate Wars tells the story of the great chocolatier dynasties, through the prism of the Cadburys. Chocolate was consumed unrefined and unprocessed as a rather bitter, fatty drink for the wealthy elite until the late 19th century, when the Swiss discovered a way to blend it with milk and unleashed a product that would conquer every market in the world.
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The World of Chocolate
- By Jean on 11-05-14
By: Deborah Cadbury
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Trees in Paradise
- A California History
- By: Jared Farmer
- Narrated by: Kevin Scollin
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It’s the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities.
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lovely audiobook
- By Michael M. on 08-02-22
By: Jared Farmer
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1493
- Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
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More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, he ended that separation at a stroke. Driven by the economic goal of establishing trade with China, he accidentally set off an ecological convulsion as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans.
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Fascinating Mindbending History.
- By Betsy Powel on 12-19-11
By: Charles C. Mann
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American-Made
- The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work
- By: Nick Taylor
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
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When President Roosevelt took the oath of office in March 1933, he was facing a devastated nation. Four years into the Great Depression, a staggering 13 million American workers were jobless and many millions more of their family members were equally in need. Desperation ruled the land. In 1935, after a variety of temporary relief measures, a permanent nationwide jobs program was created.
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The true spirit of America.
- By Helen on 07-01-08
By: Nick Taylor
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
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The Graves Are Walking
- The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People
- By: John Kelly
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
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It started in 1845 and lasted six years. Before it was over, more than one million men, women, and children starved to death and another million fled the country. Measured in terms of mortality, the Great Irish Potato Famine was one of the worst disasters in the 19th century-it claimed twice as many lives as the American Civil War. A perfect storm of bacterial infection, political greed, and religious intolerance sparked this catastrophe.
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Unforgettable, Haunting, and a Compelling Warning
- By Carole T. on 08-22-12
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The King of California
- J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire
- By: Mark Arax, Rick Wartzman
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
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J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.
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Interesting story of California Ag history
- By Jean on 08-11-14
By: Mark Arax, and others
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The Men Who United the States
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How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.
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Sarcastic
- By Cynthia Hartman on 06-16-16
By: Simon Winchester
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What listeners say about Fordlandia
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jill Rudler
- 06-23-21
Worth the read…
For the first part of the book I didn’t really enjoy it. So many details and it seem to be a little scattered. But then at the end it was worth the time to understand the past, and how we got to where we are today. It was eye-opening and I wish I had paid better attention at the beginning a middle part of the book. Stick to it till the end.
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- Melissa
- 09-17-13
An eye-opening account of an arrogant man's folly
Suffice it to say that they don't say anything about this chapter of Henry Ford's life in his hometown of Dearborn, where I spent a lot of time in my childhood. Grandin depicts a man filled with hubris who seemed to think he couldn't fail at anything he tried. Yet, he failed miserably with Fordlandia, his attempt to build a worker's paradise in the Amazon -- not least because he couldn't be bothered to visit the place himelf - not even once - and was incredibly short-sighted about the realities of transferring Dearborn to the jungle. What is perhaps even more disturbing is that much of the ignorance that characterized his decisions about Fordlandia was also present in the way he ran his operations back home and saw his own place in the world. It's a tribute to the men and women that came after him that Ford Motor Co. itself has not gone the way of Fordlandia.
A short note aobut the narrator -- although his reading is a bit slow and halting, as some reviewers have noted, his pronunciation of the Brazilian words and place names is impressive and really enhanced my listening experience.
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7 people found this helpful
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- LTS
- 09-04-21
Good topic but all over the place
I feel like i chronologically never knew where i was between chapters. No continuous story/ narrative therefore artistic unity lacking. Also only feel like i dipped beneath the clouds of a 5k fr view 3 times. Read river of doubt and ford’s bio previously - so i had high hopezzz
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- #EmptyNestReader
- 02-10-23
The story of Ford's dream to create a world in the Amazon
Fordlandia is the story of Henry Ford or, as the title says “the rise and fall of Henry Ford”. It covers his background, his determination and his drive, his brilliance and his evil genius (my words). His perfecting the assembly line and use of paying $5/day (way above the going pay rate) to get the workers he needed. Sadly, he then hired a good squad to beat down any employee who dared speak of unionizing. He was also an anti-semite and a bigot. He took joy in publicly humiliating his son, Edsel.
Fordlandia is about Ford’s desire to build an American-style small town in the Amazon jungle. What is highlights is Ford’s arrogance and his foolishness. If Ford wanted something, he demanded that it be delivered, regardless of whether it was properly researched of feasible. In the Amazon, he attempted to bend the natural word to his will. His original plan was to grow rubber; however, the project took on a life of its own and evolved into an attempt to build an entire town. The result was Ford vs the natural world. The indigenous workers rejected Ford and the ethics he tried to force upon them, the managers from the US hated the jungle life and began to manipulate contracts, etc. to benefit themselves. The jungle fought back.
“The journalist Walter Lippmann identified in Henry Ford, for all his peculiarity, a common strain of "primitive Americanism." The industrialist's conviction that he could make the world conform to his will was founded on a faith that success in economic matters should, by extension, allow capitalists to try their hands "with equal success" at "every other occupation." ⭐️⭐️⭐️ At times the book is interesting and informative; unfortunately, more times than not, it is slow and plodding. By the middle I was fast scanning the pages. I kept reading thinking the pace would pick up, it did not.
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- SusanO
- 07-14-12
Superb Expose of Arrogance & Utopianism
Where does Fordlandia rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Fordlandia ranks in the top tier of audiobooks.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Fordlandia?
Ignoring local customs and climate, Ford officials insisted that clapboard houses had to be built in the jungle--with tin roofs, making them unbearable hot.
What about Jonathan Davis’s performance did you like?
He's just a very good reader, with a nice wry tone.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Wealth, ignorance, and exploitation
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Robert
- 11-26-10
Content shines through narration
I thought this was an interesting story of Henry Ford trying to impose his will on the Amazon. There are many angles at work in this story. The trees, the cultures, the people. Ford may or may not have been motivated purely on business grounds. Having such success, he was very confident in all that he did. Confident that if he just did the same things that built his empire, he could build the next stage of it. A great case study of a company moving into a new location and not understanding the locals, turning what could be new allies into potential enemies. Lessons that are still applicable today.
The narrator moves at quite a slow pace and makes it a little hard to stay engaged.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Judy S.
- 05-31-21
Great travel follow-up!
Terrific book after my visit to Amazonia and seeing the rainforest, river and places mentioned.
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- Fran Pearson
- 06-27-12
Tedious & repetitive; sad & depressing
This book of Henry Ford's unfortunate attempt to grow rubber and to instill his American Way of Life in the jungle of Brazil, is overly long and repetitive. Every problem is hashed to death, over and over. The history is probably fairly accurate, and occasional facts are interesting. The ending of the book about the long-term effects of industrialization is particularly sad....the devastation of the local Brazilians' way of life, and the destruction of the jungle ecosystem. This is one of the worst books I've ever slogged through.
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- David
- 10-21-10
Davis' reading of this book lacks flow.
Between each sentence are long pauses, and it makes the book almost impossible to get into. Because of this reading style the story loses any cadence Greg Grandin might have introduced. Listen to the sample and you will see what I mean. The whole book is like this.
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- Sam
- 05-10-21
Disappointing
I set this book aside many times and resumed it many times. I got through 7 hours before I had to quit. I suppose the to get to the needed book length the author had to go to extreme measures to find and elaborate on every minuscule negative detail of Fordlandia. It is a constant drumbeat throughout the book. Yes, the point of the book is that the experiment failed, but there were positives as well that get only short mention in this book. Most galling is the now frequent retelling of history using the lens of 21st century standards of conduct. The author repeatedly demeans Henry Ford for encouraging his employees to lead upright lives. Moral standards were different then. Prohibition was the law of the land, not a cockamamy idea Henry dreamed up.
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