Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala 1899-1944: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala 18991944 (Latin American Silhouettes)

About this book

The United Fruit Company (U.F.C.O.) developed an unprecedented relationship with Guatemala in the first half of this century. By 1944 U.F.C.O. owned 566 000 acres employed 20 000 people and operated 96% of Guatemalas 719 miles of railroad making the multinational corporation Guatemalas largest private landowner and biggest employer. In Doing Business with the Dictators Paul J. Dosal shows how U.F.C.O. 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 U.F.C.O. acquired defended and exploited its Guatemalan properties by collaborating with successive authoritarian regimes.