Fair Housing Center March Book Club...
The FHCWM invites you to join them in reading and discussing Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin for their March 15, Book Club gathering.
Discussion will take place in the Disability Network Lakeshore office (426 Century Lane, Holland) at 11:45am.
Please RSVP to lkeegan@fhcwm.org or by calling 616.451.2980. Bring a lunch, bring a friend, and join the discussion!
About FordlandiaProving that truth can indeed be stranger than fiction, Fordlandia is the story of Henry Ford’s ill-advised attempt to transform raw Brazilian rainforest into homespun slices of Americana. With sales of his Model-T booming, the automotive tycoon saw an opportunity to expand his reach further by exploiting a downtrodden Brazilian rubber industry. His vision, the laughably-named Amazonian outpost of Fordlandia, would become an enviable symbol of efficiency and mark the Ford Motor Company as a player on the global stage. Or so he thought. With thoughtful and meticulous research, author Greg Grandin explores the astounding oversights (no botanists were consulted to confirm the colony’s agricultural viability) and painful arrogance (little thought was paid to how native Brazilians would react to an American way of life) that hamstrung the project from the start. Instead of ushering in a new era of commerce, Fordlandia became a cautionary tale of a dream destroyed by hubris. –Dave Callanan |
