Doing Business With the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944

Paul J. Dosal

Rowman & Littlefield, Jul 1, 1993 - Political Science - 256 pages

The United Fruit Company (UFCO) developed an unprecedented relationship with Guatemala in the first half of this century. By 1944, UFCO owned 566,000 acres, employed 20,000 people, and operated 96% of Guatemala's 719 miles of railroad, making the multinational corporation Guatemala's largest private landowner and biggest employer. In Doing Business with the Dictators, Paul J. Dosal shows how UFCO built up a profitable corporation in a country whose political system was known to be corrupt. His work is based largely on research of company documents recently acquired from the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act-no other historian researching this topic has looked at these sources. As a result, Dr. Dosal is able to offer the first documentary evidence of how UFCO acquired, defended, and exploited its Guatemalan properties by collaborating with successive authoritarian regimes.

What people are saying

Review: Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944

User Review  - Eric Secoy - Goodreads

I wanted to like this book, and it has some great info about United Fruit and its effects on Guatemalan politics, but the author is an academic and ultimately failed to make the history come alive ...

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• The Liberals Lay the Foundations: 17
• An Empire Is Born: 37
• Minor Keith and Caudillo Politics: 55
• United Fruit Cuyamel and the Battle for Motagua Part I: 75
• The Democratic Interlude: 95
• The Puerto Barrios Strike: 119
• The Battle for Motagua Part 11: 141
• Expansion to the Pacific: 161
• The Octopus: 183
• The United States versus United Fruit: 205
• Epilogue: 225
• Bibliography: 233
• Index: 249

About the author

\Paul J. Dosal is assistant professor of Latin American history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Doing Business With the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944; Latin American silhouettes
• Author: Paul J. Dosal
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993
• ISBN: 0842025901, 9780842025904
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / International / General; History / Latin America / Central America; Political Science / History & Theory; Political Science / Public Policy / Economic Policy