Bananas are the world’s most widely consumed fruit. At the start of the twentieth century, bananas became big business, giving rise to the United Fruit Company — one of the world’s first multinational business corporations. How did this mighty “economic empire” influence politics, society, and environments in Central America?

ProMusa is a network for scientific discussions on bananas. “Musa” is the scientific name for bananas. The site has a wealth of information, including: a “Musapedia” with lots of facts about bananas, images of the incredible diversity of bananas, and an extensive bibliography of all things banana.

BananaLink is a United Kingdom-based organization that works for fair and equitable production and trade in bananas and pineapples based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Their website has excellent graphics and is among the most up-to-date on changes taking place in the industry.

Visualizing the Americas is a recently launched project hosted by the University of Toronto that examines the history of capitalism through the production and consumption of the banana. It preserves and digitizes rare, endangered records that are integral to the histories of the multinational banana companies or to the histories of the communities in which the companies operated. The digitized archives are freely accessible to anyone in the world.

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