Amazon Best of the Month, June 2009: Proving 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
Take a Closer Look at Images from Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
(Click on images to enlarge) A sketch of the opera house in Manus, Brazil (aka. "the tropical Paris") An Amazonian family employed in the rubber trade Ford executives on the deck of The Ormoc en route to the Amazon
Workers clearing the rainforest before construction can begin Mundurucú mission children with German nuns A Lincoln Zephyr stuck in Fordlandia mud
Fordlandia's Riverside Avenue near the Tapajós River Ruins of Fordlandia's powerhouse Ruins of the sawmill at Iron Mountain
