Robert Lacey
Model Failiure
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
By Greg Grandin
Icon Books 416pp £14.99
Reviewers have rightly compared this important and enjoyable book to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. But with Oscar season upon us, perhaps another comparison is called for – to James Cameron’s box-office-topping parable of American utopianism and arrogance, Avatar. Greg Grandin, an academic with a gift for sharp characterisation and storytelling, is positively cinematic as he describes the fate of Henry Ford’s attempt to build small-town America in the wilds of the Amazon basin. But he goes a step beyond Avatar. Fordlandia shows what happens after the Blue People have triumphed.
In 1927 Henry Ford, at that time the richest and possibly most famous man on earth, bought a tract of Brazilian land the size of Northern Ireland in what was then called the jungle, and what we now call the rainforest. In emulation of his friend, the tyre
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
Give the gift that lasts all year with a subscription to Literary Review. Save up to 35% on the cover price when you visit us at https://literaryreview.co.uk/subscribe and enter the code 'XMAS24'