Summary of Greg Grandin's Fordlandia

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#1 In the 1920s, America’s thirst for rubber helped strengthen European colonialism, as revenue from rubber was used to pay off England and France’s war debt.

#2 The rubber industry was already dependent on oil, and by 1924, Ford had considered growing his own rubber in the muck lands of the Florida Everglades. Rumors of his interest in Florida prompted speculators to organize the Florida and Cape Cod Realty Company to buy up and subdivide large tracts of land in Labelle.

#3 Ford did not like collective action. When Firestone tried to organize the rubber industry, Ford refused to participate. He decided that the best place to grow rubber was in the Amazon, where it originated.

#4 The southern half of the Amazon basin, which is home to the Hevea brasiliensis tree, was the site of the world’s rubber boom in the second half of the nineteenth century. With their Beaux Arts palaces, neoclassical municipal buildings, electric trams, and wide Parisian boulevards, the cities of Manaus and Belém competed for the title of tropical Paris.

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E-book: 2 maja 2022