Related Pronunciations
Unvanquished Determination
Most Woaded
powerful Woaded
intense Woaded
vibrant Woaded
bold Woaded
daring Woaded
fiery Woaded
passionate Woaded
dynamic Woaded
energetic Woaded
lively Woaded
exciting Woaded
thrilling Woaded
adventurous Woaded
courageous Woaded
fearless Woaded
brave Woaded
determined Woaded
resolute Woaded
tenacious Woaded
persistent Woaded
strong Woaded
steadfast Woaded
robust Woaded
hardy Woaded
tough Woaded
rugged Woaded
sturdy Woaded
fierce Woaded
wild Woaded
untamed Woaded
unrestrained Woaded
unbridled Woaded
uninhibited Woaded
uncontrolled Woaded
uncontrollable Woaded
unstoppable Woaded
unyielding Woaded
unshakeable Woaded
unbreakable Woaded
invincible Woaded
indomitable Woaded
unbeatable Woaded
unshakeable Woaded
unassailable Woaded
unflinching Woaded
unwavering Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unswerving Woaded
unbowed Woaded
unflagging Woaded
unrelenting Woaded
uncompromising Woaded
unfaltering Woaded
unshakable Woaded
unflappable Woaded
undaunted Woaded
unflustered Woaded
unblinking Woaded
undeterred Woaded
unwavering Woaded
unmoved Woaded
unflinching Woaded
unbroken Woaded
unbending Woaded
unyielding Woaded
unswayable Woaded
uninfluenced Woaded
unfluctuating Woaded
unfailing Woaded
unending Woaded
unhindered Woaded
unstressed Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unphased Woaded
unruffled Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unworried Woaded
unanxious Woaded
unfazed Woaded
unagitated Woaded
unbothered Woaded
unconcerned Woaded
unrattled Woaded
unmoved Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
undisturbed Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
unflappable Woaded
unruffled Woaded
unshakeable Woaded
unconquerable Woaded
unrivaled Woaded
unexcelled Woaded
unequaled Woaded
unmatched Woaded
unparalleled Woaded
unsurpassed Woaded
unbeatable Woaded
unexampled Woaded
unsurpassable Woaded
unprecedented Woaded
unconquered Woaded
unsubdued Woaded
unvanquished Woaded
unprevailed Woaded
unbested Woaded
unovercome Woaded
unmastered Woaded
unconquered Woaded
unwinning Woaded
unyielded Woaded
unsuccumbed Woaded
untamed Woaded
unsubdued Woaded
unvanquished Woaded
unbowed Woaded
unquelled Woaded
unsubmissive Woaded
undefeated Woaded
unvanquished Woaded
unsubdued Woaded
unconquered Woaded
unoverthrown Woaded
unbeaten Woaded
unexceeded Woaded
unpassed Woaded
unsurmounted Woaded
unoutdone Woaded
unsurvived Woaded
unthin Woaded
unslackened Woaded
untightened Woaded
unloosed Woaded
unopen Woaded
unstretched Woaded
unyielded Woaded
unlaxed Woaded
unpulled Woaded
unstrained Woaded
unlaxed Woaded
unforced Woaded
unrigid Woaded
untensed Woaded
unstressed Woaded
untaut Woaded
unhard Woaded
unstiff Woaded
untight Woaded
unbraced Woaded
unstrained Woaded
unrelentingly Woaded
unceasingly Woaded
uninterruptedly Woaded
unendingly Woaded
unendingly Woaded
unceasingly Woaded
unstoppably Woaded
unending Woaded
unceasing Woaded
uninterrupted Woaded
unstopping Woaded
unhindering Woaded
unflaggingly Woaded
untiringly Woaded
unwearyingly Woaded
unfalteringly Woaded
unwaveringly Woaded
unyieldingly Woaded
unswervingly Woaded
undyingly Woaded
unchangingly Woaded
unvaryingly Woaded
unalterably Woaded
unflinchingly Woaded
unalterably Woaded
unvaryingly Woaded
undeviatingly Woaded
undeviatingly Woaded
unflinchingly Woaded
unvaryingly Woaded
unswervingly Woaded
unying Woaded
unflinchingly Woaded
unpacified Woaded
unapologetic Woaded
unrepentant Woaded
unremorseful Woaded
uncontrite Woaded
unashamed Woaded
unconcerned Woaded
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undisturbed Woaded
unconcerned Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
unshaken Woaded
unbothered Woaded
undeterred Woaded
unintimidated Woaded
unafraid Woaded
unscared Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
unfearful Woaded
unawed Woaded
unblinking Woaded
unintimidated Woaded
unscared Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
unswayed Woaded
unmoved Woaded
unaffected Woaded
unruffled Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unflustered Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unworried Woaded
unanxious Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unconcerned Woaded
undisturbed Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unmoved Woaded
unshaken Woaded
unbothered Woaded
unconcerned Woaded
unworried Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
undaunted Woaded
unfazed Woaded
unawed Woaded
unflinching Woaded
unshakable Woaded
uninhibited Woaded
unyielding Woaded
unshakeable Woaded
unflappable Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unshaken Woaded
unwavering Woaded
unflustered Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unworried Woaded
unmoved Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
undisturbed Woaded
unmoved Woaded
unruffled Woaded
unflappable Woaded
unaffected Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unworried Woaded
unanxious Woaded
undisturbed Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
unshaken Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unshaken Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
undaunted Woaded
unfazed Woaded
unawed Woaded
unflinching Woaded
unswayed Woaded
unmoved Woaded
unaffected Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unworried Woaded
unanxious Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
undisturbed Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
unshaken Woaded
unworried Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
unshaken Woaded
unworried Woaded
unmoved Woaded
untroubled Woaded
unaffected Woaded
unperturbed Woaded
unalarmed Woaded
undisturbed Woaded
undistracted Woaded
undiverted Woaded
undeterred Woaded
undelayed Woaded
unhurried Woaded
unspeeded Woaded
uninhibited Woaded
unrestrained Woaded
unimpeded Woaded
unhampered Woaded
unrestricted Woaded
unchecked Woaded
unbridled Woaded
uncontrolled Woaded
unconstrained Woaded
uninfluenced Woaded
unbound Woaded
unchained Woaded
unleashed Woaded
unrepressed Woaded
unhindered Woaded
uninhibited Woaded
untrammeled Woaded
unstifled Woaded
unsmothered Woaded
unblockages Woaded
unobstructed Woaded
unclogged Woaded
unlimited Woaded
unrestricted Woaded
unbarricaded Woaded
unencumbered Woaded
unshackled Woaded
unburdened Woaded
unhampered Woaded
unfettered Woaded
unrestricted Woaded
unobstructed Woaded
undelayed Woaded
undistracted Woaded
undiverted Woaded
uncircumscribed Woaded
opulent Woaded
sumptuous Woaded
luxurious Woaded
rich Woaded
affluent Woaded
wealthy Woaded
prosperous Woaded
well-off Woaded
well-to-do Woaded
comfortable Woaded
flush Woaded
loaded Woaded
moneyed Woaded
deep-pocketed Woaded
well-heeled Woaded
well-fixed Woaded
well-situated Woaded
well-kept Woaded
well-maintained Woaded
well-regarded Woaded
well-respected Woaded
well-liked Woaded
well-received Woaded
well-known Woaded
well-accomplished Woaded
well-informed Woaded
well-read Woaded
well-traveled Woaded
well-rounded Woaded
well-developed Woaded
well-educated Woaded
well-behaved Woaded
well-trained Woaded
well-instructed Woaded
well-oiled Woaded
well-prepared Woaded
well-organized Woaded
well-ordered Woaded
well-mannered Woaded
well-mannered Woaded
well-spoken Woaded
well-thought-out Woaded
well-honed Woaded
well-regulated Woaded
well-handled Woaded
well-coordinated Woaded
well-balanced Woaded
well-adjusted Woaded
well-grounded Woaded
well-structured Woaded
well-planned Woaded
well-executed Woaded
well-orchestrated Woaded
well-arranged Woaded
well-put-together Woaded
well-assembled Woaded
well-coordinated Woaded
well-oiled Woaded
well-constructed Woaded
well-crafted Woaded
well-built Woaded
well-made Woaded
well-formed Woaded
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well-thought-out Woaded
well-intentioned Woaded
well-considered Woaded
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well-executed Woaded
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well-run Woaded
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well-kept Woaded
well-managed Woaded
well-supplied Woaded
well-stocked Woaded
well-provisioned Woaded
well-nourished Woaded
well-fed Woaded
well-hydrated Woaded
well-exercised Woaded
well-read Woaded
well-analyzed Woaded
well-researched Woaded
well-studied Woaded
well-thought-out Woaded
well-considered Woaded
well-weighed Woaded
well-measured Woaded
well-received Woaded
well-rated Woaded
well-reviewed Woaded
well-respected Woaded
well-regarded Woaded
well-recognized Woaded
well-remembered Woaded
well-recalled Woaded
well-liked Woaded
well-received Woaded
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well-regarded Woaded
well-remembered Woaded
well-respected Woaded
well-liked Woaded
well-received Woaded
well-loved Woaded
well-respected Woaded
well-rewarded Woaded
well-served Woaded
well-spoken Woaded
well-understood Woaded
well-oiled Woaded
well-organized Woaded
well-prepared Woaded
well-qualified Woaded
well-rewarded Woaded
well-satisfied Woaded
well-set Woaded
well-situated Woaded
well-served Woaded
well-skilled Woaded
well-stocked Woaded
well-studied Woaded
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well-thought Woaded
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well-howed Woaded
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First, I love learning about different industries and commodities, how they developed over time, often over millennia, shaping world markets and modern political economies (e.g. cotton, gold, salt, cod, petroleum). “The Fish” provides a fascinating introduction to the world of bananas, a fruit that every American today knows and most of whom love on their breakfast cereal or as a mid-day, nutritious snack. Only, as I learned, bananas aren’t actually a fruit and little more than a century ago they were far from common, but rather quite exotic, a true luxury, displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition to crowds of gawking onlookers as if it came from another planet. Indeed, according to the author, a banana in 1900 was as unusual to the average American as an African cucumber is today.
There’s a lot about the very familiar banana that I never knew. For instance, Cohen explains that the banana tree is actually the world’s largest herb, and thus its offspring, the banana, are technically berries. Even more fascinating, bananas grow from rhizomes, not seeds. In other words, cut appendages continue to grow, replicating the original. As Cohen describes it: “When you look at a banana, you’re looking at every banana, an infinite regression. There are no mutts, only the first fruit of a particular species and billions of copies. Every banana is a clone, in other words, a replica of an ur-banana that weighed on its stalk the first morning of man.”
Believe it or not, the story of the banana gets even crazier. If you’ve ever wondered why old black-and-white films joked about slipping on a banana peel even though the banana peel that you’ve long known doesn’t feel particularly slippery, that’s because we have completely different bananas today. In the early nineteenth century, Americans were introduced to the “Big Mike,” a variety of banana that went extinct in 1965. It was bigger, tastier and more robust than the bananas we have today, according to Cohen, and their peels were far more slippery. The bananas we eat today are known as “Cavendish,” their primary benefit being immunity to the Panama disease that wiped out the Big Mike. Again, because bananas are all exact genetic copies, they are highly susceptible to rapid eradication from disease.
Second, I’m a sucker for a great rags-to-riches story. The tale of Samuel Zemurray delivers that in spades. He arrived in America in 1891, a penniless Jew from what today is Moldova, and settled in the Deep South. (It may surprise many Americans but the South was far more hospitable to Jews for most our history. For instance, Jefferson Davis had two Jews in his Cabinet; Lincoln had none.) While still in his teens Zemurray recognized a business opportunity where other only saw trash: the ripe bananas that Boston Fruit discarded along the rail line in Mobile, Alabama before shipping off to Chicago and other northern metropolitan destinations. Zemurray was a natural entrepreneur; he had no particular affinity for bananas, it was just the opportunity at hand. “If he had settled in Chicago,” Cohen writes, “it would have been beef; if Pittsburgh, steel; if L.A., movies.” Zemurray quickly turned one man’s trash into cash, renting a boxcar to carry the castoff bananas along the slow rail route through the South, selling his cargo to local merchants at each Podunk rail stop until either his inventory ran out or spoiled. From such humble beginnings did a great international trading company eventually take root, Cuyamel Fruit, named after the river separating Honduras and Guatemala, the heartland of banana growing.
By 1925, Cuyamel Fruit Company, the creation of an upstart Jewish immigrant banana jobber, had emerged as a serious threat to United Fruit, the undisputed king of the industry, a company that was led by Boston’s best, the sons of Brahmins. The threat was not because of Cuyamel’s size. In most ways United Fruit still dominated its aggressive rival (i.e. United Fruit was harvesting 40 million bunches a year with 150,000 employees and working capital of $27m, compared to Cuyamel’s 8 million bunches, 10,000 employees and $3m in working capital). The threat was that Cuyamel was a better run business and more innovative, leading the way with selective pruning, drainage, silting, staking and overhead irrigation. “U.F. was a conglomerate, a collection of firms bought up and slapped together,” Cohen writes. Cuyamel, by contrast, was a well-oiled machine, vertically integrated and led from the front by Zemurray, the ultimate owner-manager-worker.
Cuyamel’s success was certainly no accident. It was the product of hard work, an obsessed owner-operator who understood his business at a visceral level, a skill earned over decades of hard, unglamorous work. Zemurray adhered to his own, classically American immigrant code of conduct: “get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and the blood in your eyes.” Cohen describes his commitment and ultimate advantage this way: “Zemurray worked in the fields beside his engineers, planters, and machete men. He was deep in the muck, sweat covered, swinging a blade. He helped map the plantations, plant the rhizomes, clear the weeds, lay the track…unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business, from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit turned yellow…By the time he was forty, he had served in every position from fruit jobber to boss. He worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar.” Indeed, dedicated immigrants like Sam Zemurray have made America great. There’s nothing wrong with doing grunt work. In fact, it’s essential.
United Fruit bought out Cuyamel in the early days of the stock market crash of 1929, when the former had a market share of 54% to the latter’s 14%. United Fruit’s profit was some $45m and its stock price $108. By 1932, profit was down to $6m and the stock languished at $10.25. “The company was caught in a death spiral,” according to Cohen. By January 1933, Zemurray used his massive stake and proxy votes to take over the company, claiming “I realized that the greatest mistake the United Fruit management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building.” The immigrant with dirt under his nails and a rumbled jacket knew the business better than the Ivy Leaguers with manicures and pinstriped suits. Indeed, the fish (Cuyamel Fruit) was swallowing the whale (United Fruit). Zemurray would run the company until 1951, arguably the most successful years of its history. In 1950, the company cleared $66m in profit. By 1960, profits would fall to just $2m. United Fruit collapsed, eventually restructuring and reinventing itself as Chiquita Brands, based in Cincinnati.
When Zemurray started in the industry at the turn of the century, bananas were curiosities, a sidebar trade, something for the rich. By the time he retired, bananas were part of the daily American fabric, the interests of the industry consistent with that of political leadership in Washington. Indeed, some of the most illustrious and powerful men in government had close connections to United Fruit during the Zemurray era: CIA director Allen Dulles (member of the board of directors), secretary of state John Foster Dulles (U.F. legal counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell), New Deal fixer Tom Corcoran (paid lobbyist), UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (large shareholder), among others. By the 1950s, Cohen writes, “it was hard to tell where the government ended and the company began.” At its height, Cohen says, United Fruit was “as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton.”
For anyone interested in business history, American politics in Central America or the development of the global fruit industry, “The Fish that Ate the Whale” is a book to own and savor.
Read less
First, I love learning about different industries and commodities, how they developed over time, often over millennia, shaping world markets and modern political economies (e.g. cotton, gold, salt, cod, petroleum). “The Fish” provides a fascinating introduction to the world of bananas, a fruit that every American today knows and most of whom love on their breakfast cereal or as a mid-day, nutritious snack. Only, as I learned, bananas aren’t actually a fruit and little more than a century ago they were far from common, but rather quite exotic, a true luxury, displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition to crowds of gawking onlookers as if it came from another planet. Indeed, according to the author, a banana in 1900 was as unusual to the average American as an African cucumber is today.
There’s a lot about the very familiar banana that I never knew. For instance, Cohen explains that the banana tree is actually the world’s largest herb, and thus its offspring, the banana, are technically berries. Even more fascinating, bananas grow from rhizomes, not seeds. In other words, cut appendages continue to grow, replicating the original. As Cohen describes it: “When you look at a banana, you’re looking at every banana, an infinite regression. There are no mutts, only the first fruit of a particular species and billions of copies. Every banana is a clone, in other words, a replica of an ur-banana that weighed on its stalk the first morning of man.”
Believe it or not, the story of the banana gets even crazier. If you’ve ever wondered why old black-and-white films joked about slipping on a banana peel even though the banana peel that you’ve long known doesn’t feel particularly slippery, that’s because we have completely different bananas today. In the early nineteenth century, Americans were introduced to the “Big Mike,” a variety of banana that went extinct in 1965. It was bigger, tastier and more robust than the bananas we have today, according to Cohen, and their peels were far more slippery. The bananas we eat today are known as “Cavendish,” their primary benefit being immunity to the Panama disease that wiped out the Big Mike. Again, because bananas are all exact genetic copies, they are highly susceptible to rapid eradication from disease.
Second, I’m a sucker for a great rags-to-riches story. The tale of Samuel Zemurray delivers that in spades. He arrived in America in 1891, a penniless Jew from what today is Moldova, and settled in the Deep South. (It may surprise many Americans but the South was far more hospitable to Jews for most our history. For instance, Jefferson Davis had two Jews in his Cabinet; Lincoln had none.) While still in his teens Zemurray recognized a business opportunity where other only saw trash: the ripe bananas that Boston Fruit discarded along the rail line in Mobile, Alabama before shipping off to Chicago and other northern metropolitan destinations. Zemurray was a natural entrepreneur; he had no particular affinity for bananas, it was just the opportunity at hand. “If he had settled in Chicago,” Cohen writes, “it would have been beef; if Pittsburgh, steel; if L.A., movies.” Zemurray quickly turned one man’s trash into cash, renting a boxcar to carry the castoff bananas along the slow rail route through the South, selling his cargo to local merchants at each Podunk rail stop until either his inventory ran out or spoiled. From such humble beginnings did a great international trading company eventually take root, Cuyamel Fruit, named after the river separating Honduras and Guatemala, the heartland of banana growing.
By 1925, Cuyamel Fruit Company, the creation of an upstart Jewish immigrant banana jobber, had emerged as a serious threat to United Fruit, the undisputed king of the industry, a company that was led by Boston’s best, the sons of Brahmins. The threat was not because of Cuyamel’s size. In most ways United Fruit still dominated its aggressive rival (i.e. United Fruit was harvesting 40 million bunches a year with 150,000 employees and working capital of $27m, compared to Cuyamel’s 8 million bunches, 10,000 employees and $3m in working capital). The threat was that Cuyamel was a better run business and more innovative, leading the way with selective pruning, drainage, silting, staking and overhead irrigation. “U.F. was a conglomerate, a collection of firms bought up and slapped together,” Cohen writes. Cuyamel, by contrast, was a well-oiled machine, vertically integrated and led from the front by Zemurray, the ultimate owner-manager-worker.
Cuyamel’s success was certainly no accident. It was the product of hard work, an obsessed owner-operator who understood his business at a visceral level, a skill earned over decades of hard, unglamorous work. Zemurray adhered to his own, classically American immigrant code of conduct: “get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and the blood in your eyes.” Cohen describes his commitment and ultimate advantage this way: “Zemurray worked in the fields beside his engineers, planters, and machete men. He was deep in the muck, sweat covered, swinging a blade. He helped map the plantations, plant the rhizomes, clear the weeds, lay the track…unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business, from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit turned yellow…By the time he was forty, he had served in every position from fruit jobber to boss. He worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar.” Indeed, dedicated immigrants like Sam Zemurray have made America great. There’s nothing wrong with doing grunt work. In fact, it’s essential.
United Fruit bought out Cuyamel in the early days of the stock market crash of 1929, when the former had a market share of 54% to the latter’s 14%. United Fruit’s profit was some $45m and its stock price $108. By 1932, profit was down to $6m and the stock languished at $10.25. “The company was caught in a death spiral,” according to Cohen. By January 1933, Zemurray used his massive stake and proxy votes to take over the company, claiming “I realized that the greatest mistake the United Fruit management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building.” The immigrant with dirt under his nails and a rumbled jacket knew the business better than the Ivy Leaguers with manicures and pinstriped suits. Indeed, the fish (Cuyamel Fruit) was swallowing the whale (United Fruit). Zemurray would run the company until 1951, arguably the most successful years of its history. In 1950, the company cleared $66m in profit. By 1960, profits would fall to just $2m. United Fruit collapsed, eventually restructuring and reinventing itself as Chiquita Brands, based in Cincinnati.
When Zemurray started in the industry at the turn of the century, bananas were curiosities, a sidebar trade, something for the rich. By the time he retired, bananas were part of the daily American fabric, the interests of the industry consistent with that of political leadership in Washington. Indeed, some of the most illustrious and powerful men in government had close connections to United Fruit during the Zemurray era: CIA director Allen Dulles (member of the board of directors), secretary of state John Foster Dulles (U.F. legal counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell), New Deal fixer Tom Corcoran (paid lobbyist), UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (large shareholder), among others. By the 1950s, Cohen writes, “it was hard to tell where the government ended and the company began.” At its height, Cohen says, United Fruit was “as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton.”
For anyone interested in business history, American politics in Central America or the development of the global fruit industry, “The Fish that Ate the Whale” is a book to own and savor.
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