Fordlandia
The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
by Greg Grandin
The recap
In 1927 Henry Ford, at the height of his industrial power, acquires a vast tract of the Brazilian Amazon with a plan to grow his own rubber for American cars. What rises there is more than a plantation. Fordlandia is meant to be a slice of small-town America set down in the rainforest, with rows of clapboard houses, factory whistles and time clocks, cafeterias serving wholesome American food and an open-air dance hall for polkas, minuets and square dances. Historian Greg Grandin tells the story of this improbable town and the collision it sets off between Ford's rigid ideals and the river, the forest and the Brazilian workers expected to live by his rules, people who had always measured time by the sun and the seasons. Rich in detail and often darkly comic, the book is also a portrait of Ford himself, a man convinced that his methods could reorganise not only industry but human nature. It is a strange, absorbing chapter of history that has been almost entirely forgotten.
Why read it
For lovers of offbeat history and failed utopias, and for anyone fascinated by the gap between grand plans and the places they land.
Fun facts
- 01
The book was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in History.
- 02
It was also a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
- 03
Ford's jungle town included about 400 clapboard houses and an open-air dance hall where wholesome minuets and polkas were the order of the day.
- 04
Workers chafed at company rules that included identification cards, prohibition, compulsory medical exams and obligatory square dancing.
- 05
Maureen Corrigan reviewed the book for NPR's Fresh Air in 2009, calling it the rediscovery of a largely forgotten story.
