Fordlandia

Fordlandia, by Greg Grandin

Finalist for the National Book Award , “A gripping story of high hopes and deep failure-Boston Globe”. This is the story of the rise and fall of Henry Ford Senior’s forgotten Amazon jungle empire.  Hundreds of thousands of acres of land; thousands of people; two entire American style small towns right down to the concrete sidewalks, cape cod homes, and red fire plugs; and millions of planted rubber trees.  Dead and gone.

Fordlandia and its daughter community, Belterra, were built in the 1920’s and 30’s to grow latex producing rubber trees which would provide all the military needs of the US in case of war. The war came.  The latex, in any great amount, never did.

Disease, fungus, insects of many kinds in swarms and hordes did. And the blunders of the heretofore could-not-fail Ford industrial genius only added to or allowed the disasters to fall, one after another.

Nonetheless, this is not a story about failure, but about tenacity, and dreaming big, and heart.

Fordlandia still exists, almost completely deserted, its old mills and homes almost covered in the jungle it was cut out of.  The golf course, tennis courts, movie theater, almost all gone.  But not quite.

A thrilling story of the Ford family and the Ford empire, and Henry Ford himself, whose greatest gifts became as he aged his greatest weaknesses.

In this book, there is a lesson for every leader of others in any walk of life.-****

-Ken