{"id":1464,"date":"2026-02-27T13:41:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T18:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2026-02-28T10:22:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T15:22:25","slug":"a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=1464","title":{"rendered":"A Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-1.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1465\" data-wp-editing=\"1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1465\" title=\"image-1-png\" src=\"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"501\" height=\"942\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Recently, a friend* turned me on to a book that I thought I should share with you. It\u2019s a most informative book and a great read. <em>The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America\u2019s Banana King<\/em> by Rich Cohen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012, 242 pp.) received rave reviews when first published, and deservingly so.<\/p>\n<p>It is the story of Samuel Zemurray, a penniless immigrant from Russia who arrived in the United States in 1891, who by 1905 owned steamships, side-wheelers that crossed the Gulf of Mexico. Starting as a fruit peddler, he went on to become the head of United Fruit Company and one of the richest men in America. It is the story of the much heralded \u201cAmerican Dream\u201d with \u201cSam the Banana Man\u201d starring as the quintessential American embodying the virtues and vices of the Gilded Age \u201cRobber Barons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The book is chock full of titillating and interesting tales of American history during the first half of the twentieth century. Replete with characters like \u201cMachine Gun\u201d Molony and more recognizable ones, including Che Guevarra and Fidel Castro, Cohen\u2019s narrative is a history of the avarice of business leaders to make a buck as well as the nefarious machinations of the U. S. government in pitching \u201cDollar Diplomacy\u201d and anti-communist activities in Central America.<\/p>\n<p>From Honduras to New Orleans to New York and Boston, Zemurray\u2019s life has a fictional quality that makes its reality even more remarkable.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>*Joel Blackwell is an award-winning editor, political consultant and media lobbying specialist. His email is: Grassrootsguy@joelblackwell.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, a friend* turned me on to a book that I thought I should share with you. It\u2019s a most informative book and a great read. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America\u2019s Banana King by Rich Cohen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012, 242 pp.) received rave reviews when first&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-robert-fischer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Review - Potlatch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/potlatchga.com\/?p=1464\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Review - Potlatch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recently, a friend* turned me on to a book that I thought I should share with you. 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