Love Banana Cultures? Readers share 100 books like Banana Cultures...

By John Soluri,

Here are 100 books that Banana Cultures fans have personally recommended if you like Banana Cultures. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of To Lead As Equals: Rural Protest and Political Consciousness in Chinandega, Nicaragua, 1912-1979

Gillian McGillivray Author Of Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959

From my list on workers, populism, and revolution in Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became curious about US imperialism and Latin American history after reading Gabriel García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. While pursuing a BA in History and Spanish at Dalhousie and an MA and PhD in Latin American Studies and History at Georgetown, I learned that Marquez's fictional banana worker massacre really happened in 1928 Colombia. What made me focus on sugar, rather than bananas, is the fact that sugar’s not really food... it often takes over land where food was planted, and the lack of food leads to a potentially revolutionary situation. I've used the following books in my classes about Revolution, Populism, and Commodities in Latin America at York University's Glendon College.

Gillian's book list on workers, populism, and revolution in Latin America

Gillian McGillivray Why did Gillian love this book?

To get through over a hundred books on my History PhD comprehensive exams list, I allowed myself a maximum of one reading day plus a maximum of one double-sided cue card per book.

Jeff Gould crammed so much super cool theory about populism and revolution, workers, and women into his beautifully written book that he got four cue cards and three days! Gould explains that the first Somoza (named “Anastasio”) rose to power largely thanks to US influence, but, once there, he built his own following and passed some remarkably progressive reforms, at least on paper.

The book changed the way I think about populism and revolution in Latin America, completely inspiring the PhD research that became my first book and my current project on rural populism in Brazil.
To Lead as Equals shows how powerful sugar workers can be when rural sugar-cane cutters unite with industrial sugar-factory workers, and…

By Jeffrey L. Gould,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked To Lead As Equals as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book is a carefully argued study of peasants and labor during the Somoza regime, focusing on popular movements in the economically strategic department of Chinandega in western Nicaragua. Jeffrey Gould traces the evolution of group consciousness among peasants and workers as they moved away from extreme dependency on the patron to achieve an autonomous social and political ideology. In doing so, he makes important contributions to peasant studies and theories of revolution, as well as our understanding of Nicaraguan history.

According to Gould, when Anastasio Somoza first came to power in 1936, workers and peasants took the Somocista reform…


Book cover of Sandino's Daughters Revisited: Feminism in Nicaragua

Gillian McGillivray Author Of Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959

From my list on workers, populism, and revolution in Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became curious about US imperialism and Latin American history after reading Gabriel García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. While pursuing a BA in History and Spanish at Dalhousie and an MA and PhD in Latin American Studies and History at Georgetown, I learned that Marquez's fictional banana worker massacre really happened in 1928 Colombia. What made me focus on sugar, rather than bananas, is the fact that sugar’s not really food... it often takes over land where food was planted, and the lack of food leads to a potentially revolutionary situation. I've used the following books in my classes about Revolution, Populism, and Commodities in Latin America at York University's Glendon College.

Gillian's book list on workers, populism, and revolution in Latin America

Gillian McGillivray Why did Gillian love this book?

I came across Margaret Randall’s Sandino’s Daughters Revisited while researching my MA thesis on women in the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution, and I love to use it with students since it tells a fascinating history through individuals’ stories.

The book is a really interesting follow-up to Sandino’s Daughters, which was based on interviews Randall did before the triumph of the revolution. Here, Randall is interviewing many of the same women after the Sandinistas lost democratic elections in 1990, offering lots of insights to readers about the complex causes for the triumph and downfall of the revolution.

The twelve women came from many different backgrounds, including: Diana Espinoza, who worked for an employee-owned factory during the revolutionary period; Daisy Zamora, a poet who served as vice-minister of culture during the revolution, and Dora Maria Vidaluz Meneses, the daughter of a Somozan official who shares some really moving stories about her time living…

By Margaret Randall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Sandino's Daughters Revisited as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sandino's Daughters, Margaret Randall's conversations with Nicaraguan women in their struggle against the dictator Somoza in 1979, brought the lives of a group of extraordinary female revolutionaries to the American and world public. The book remains a landmark. Now, a decade later, Randall returns to interview many of the same women and others. In Sandino's Daughters Revisited, they speak of their lives during and since the Sandinista administration, the ways in which the revolution made them strong--and also held them back. Ironically, the 1990 defeat of the Sandinistas at the ballot box has given Sandinista women greater freedom to express…


Book cover of Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History

Gillian McGillivray Author Of Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959

From my list on workers, populism, and revolution in Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became curious about US imperialism and Latin American history after reading Gabriel García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. While pursuing a BA in History and Spanish at Dalhousie and an MA and PhD in Latin American Studies and History at Georgetown, I learned that Marquez's fictional banana worker massacre really happened in 1928 Colombia. What made me focus on sugar, rather than bananas, is the fact that sugar’s not really food... it often takes over land where food was planted, and the lack of food leads to a potentially revolutionary situation. I've used the following books in my classes about Revolution, Populism, and Commodities in Latin America at York University's Glendon College.

Gillian's book list on workers, populism, and revolution in Latin America

Gillian McGillivray Why did Gillian love this book?

This was a really amazing book to read with students in my graduate course on the social history of commodities.

It contributes some really original theory about power and race, the peasantry, politics, and other major topics that those more inclined towards sociology or political science would appreciate. It is a little like the Dominican Republic version of Jeff Gould’s To Lead as Equals on Nicaragua or Gladys McCormick’s The Logic of Compromise: Authoritarianism, Betrayal, and Revolution in Rural Mexico, 1935-1965.

I am constantly telling students and colleagues about the fascinating arguments presented in Foundations of Despotism, which echoes Gould’s evidence that dictators cannot remain in power through violence, alone.

Turits’ interviews with peasants and letters that he found in the Dominican national archives from humble rural peoples show that after first coming to power in the early 1930s—ostensibly purely because of US support—the Trujillo regime built a rural base…

By Richard Lee Turits,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Foundations of Despotism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book explores the history of the Dominican Republic as it evolved from the first European colony in the Americas into a modern nation under the rule of Rafael Trujillo. It investigates the social foundations of Trujillo's exceptionally enduring and brutal dictatorship (1930-1961) and, more broadly, the way power is sustained in such non-democratic regimes.

The author reveals how the seemingly unilateral imposition of power by Trujillo in fact depended on the regime's mediation of profound social and economic transformations, especially through agrarian policies that assisted the nation's large independent peasantry. By promoting an alternative modernity that sustained peasants' free…


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile's Road to Socialism

Gillian McGillivray Author Of Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959

From my list on workers, populism, and revolution in Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became curious about US imperialism and Latin American history after reading Gabriel García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. While pursuing a BA in History and Spanish at Dalhousie and an MA and PhD in Latin American Studies and History at Georgetown, I learned that Marquez's fictional banana worker massacre really happened in 1928 Colombia. What made me focus on sugar, rather than bananas, is the fact that sugar’s not really food... it often takes over land where food was planted, and the lack of food leads to a potentially revolutionary situation. I've used the following books in my classes about Revolution, Populism, and Commodities in Latin America at York University's Glendon College.

Gillian's book list on workers, populism, and revolution in Latin America

Gillian McGillivray Why did Gillian love this book?

Weavers of Revolution is still my favorite "history from below” book to use in classes about Latin American revolutions.

It reads like a novel, bringing readers into the story by focusing on the workers of Chile’s largest cotton mill and highlighting their activities before and during the socialist Salvador Allende regime (1970-73). The Lebanese Yarur family used ethnic networks to build a successful economic enterprise that endured for many decades, but when the socialist Allende was elected, workers rejected paternalism and took over the factory to run it themselves.

Winn, building on interviews with workers as well as Allende regime officials, beautifully communicates the complexities of the era. Allende and his advisors urged workers to wait for gradual change—also urging rural workers who were seizing plantations to await formal land reform—but urban and rural workers executed factory take-overs and land occupations, radicalizing the revolution from below.

Weavers of Revolution joins…

By Peter Winn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Weavers of Revolution as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Peter Winn, a highly regarded and internationally recognized Latin-American scholar and journalist, has written an innovative case study of Chile's revolution from below. Winn's analysis of the dramatic seizure of the Yarur cotton mill in Santiago and its widely felt repercussions for Allende's revolution is based on extensive, unique interviews. He juxtaposes the workers' views and activities during the revolution with a portrait of the government.


Book cover of Climate Worrier: A Hypocrite's Guide to Saving the Planet

Tara Shine Author Of How to Save Your Planet One Object at a Time

From my list on climate change and sustainability.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an environmental scientist with over 25 years experience working on climate change and sustainability. 20 of those years were spent working internationally on environmental policy in developing countries, advising the World Bank and the OECD, and being a climate change negotiator in the UN. I am a thought leader who advised the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and The Elders Foundation. In 2018 I co-founded my business, Change by Degrees, which works with people and organisations to transform business for good. I am passionate about fairness between people and between people and the planet and enjoy communicating in a hopeful and positive way about the future we can choose.

Tara's book list on climate change and sustainability

Tara Shine Why did Tara love this book?

Colm describes his book as a ‘hypocrite’s guide to saving the planet’ and he is very honest about the contradictions in his own life as he tries to live sustainably.

He uses humour and storytelling to engage the reader and to help all of us feel overcome by the scale of the climate challenge to give ourselves a break and keep on going. 

By Colm O'Regan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Climate Worrier as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bestselling author Colm O'Regan is a worrier. A professional one. Caution is his watchword. Risk aversion is his love language. Now Colm is grappling with the biggest worry of all: the whole 'planet being on fire' thing and how exactly we can help.

Don't worry, this isn't a book telling you how to live off the grid and make your own planet-friendly soap from woodlice (that's the sequel). Instead, Climate Worrier is about the journey, about trying (and often failing) to be part of the solution to the big issues, while not despairing at the endless hypocrisies that come from…


Book cover of Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature

Jenny Price Author Of Stop Saving the Planet!: An Environmentalist Manifesto

From my list on revolutionize how Americans think about nature.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer, artist, and historian, and I’ve spent much of my career trying to blow up the powerful American definition of environment as a non-human world “out there”, and to ask how it’s allowed environmentalists, Exxon, and the EPA alike to refuse to take responsibility for how we inhabit environments. Along the way, I’ve written Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America and "Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in LA"; co-founded the LA Urban Rangers public art collective; and co-created the “Our Malibu Beaches” phone app. I currently live in St. Louis, where I’m a Research Fellow at the Sam Fox School at Washington University-St. Louis. 

Jenny's book list on revolutionize how Americans think about nature

Jenny Price Why did Jenny love this book?

An oldie but a goodie, and a classic. Cronon’s lead essay “The Trouble with Wilderness” roused ‘90s environmentalism like a brilliant party crasher—but don’t miss Richard White’s “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living,” Giovanna Di Chiro’s “Nature as Community,” and, well, my own “Looking for Nature at the Mall.”

By William Cronon (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Uncommon Ground as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a lead essay that powerfully states the broad argument of the book, William Cronon writes that the environmentalist goal of wilderness preservation is conceptually and politically wrongheaded. Among the ironies and entanglements resulting from this goal are the sale of nature in our malls through the Nature Company, and the disputes between working people and environmentalists over spotted owls and other objects of species preservation.

The problem is that we haven't learned to live responsibly in nature. The environmentalist aim of legislating humans out of the wilderness is no solution. People, Cronon argues, are inextricably tied to nature, whether…


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…

Book cover of Greenpeace Captain: My Adventures in Protecting the Future of Our Planet

Jo Miles Author Of Warped State

From my list on sci-fi and non-fiction about taking on greedy corporations.

Why am I passionate about this?

My day job has always involved working with nonprofits, and my favorites are activist organizations. The grassroots organizers I’ve worked with are some of the most impressive people I know. Despite what science fiction stories often tell us, change doesn’t come from blowing up the Death Star, but from hard work and relentless optimism. At a time when corporations are growing ever more powerful, ChatGPT wants to take our jobs, and politics can be dismally depressing, I hope these books remind you that power is never absolute, and the future is what we make of it.

Jo's book list on sci-fi and non-fiction about taking on greedy corporations

Jo Miles Why did Jo love this book?

I picked up this book as research but I kept reading because it was fascinating.

I admire Greenpeace a great deal, and their style of direct action—they’re known for activists tying themselves to oil rigs or swarms of kayaks blockading ports to make a point—is a touchpoint for the activist organization in my series.

Willcox’s memoir about captaining one of Greenpeace’s famous ships often reads like a thriller, complete with chase scenes trying to escape the Russian military, and some of the anecdotes fall into the “truth stranger than fiction” category.

A very cool look at some impressive real-life activism that’s not wonky or preachy.

By Peter Willcox, Ronald Weiss,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Greenpeace Captain as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Man. A Mission.
GREENPEACE CAPTAIN


PETER WILLCOX has been a Captain for Greenpeace for over 30 years. He would never call himself a hero, but he is recognized on every ocean and continent for devoting his entire life to saving the planet. He has led the most compelling and dangerous Greenpeace actions to bring international attention to the destruction of our environment. From the globally televised imprisonment of his crew, the "Arctic 30," by Russian Commandos to international conspiracies involving diamond smuggling, gun-trading and Al-Qaeda, Willcox has braved the unimaginable and triumphed.

This is his story--which begins when he…


Book cover of Coffee Is Not Forever: A Global History of the Coffee Leaf Rust

Robert W. Thurston Author Of Coffee: From Bean to Barista

From my list on US, China, Britain, France, and Nicaragua coffee.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have found coffee, or in fact just about any aspect of it, from pour-over to espresso, to be endlessly challenging and rewarding. My first visit to coffee farms was in 2004, to Ethiopia and Kenya. Since then I’ve been to dozens of farms in nine or ten countries. There is something about coffee people; they are wondrously generous about sharing their expertise, if they think you care and if you know the right questions to ask. Before going deeply into coffee, I was a professor of history, and I've continued to publish on topics as diverse as Stalin, the witch hunts in Europe and North America, and the body in the Anglosphere, 1880-1920.

Robert's book list on US, China, Britain, France, and Nicaragua coffee

Robert W. Thurston Why did Robert love this book?

McCook traces the global devastation of coffee trees around the world that began in 1869. His work is not just about coffee, but about the ways in which pathogens are spread by air, ships, birds, and even by humans tracking it into remote sites on their boots. So the book is about coffee but about much more:  why do certain pathogens explode all of a sudden; how have farmers tried to cope with the fungus, which destroys entire trees and whole farms; what is the genetic stock of coffee now; why has rust suddenly appeared in Latin America in recent years; and what experiments are going on to try to defeat rust? Stuart, by the way, is a wonderful guy to meet and talk to about coffee and its pests. His book is absolutely readable!

By Stuart McCook,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Coffee Is Not Forever as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The global coffee industry, which fuels the livelihoods of farmers, entrepreneurs, and consumers around the world, rests on fragile ecological foundations. In Coffee Is Not Forever, Stuart McCook explores the transnational story of this essential crop through a history of one of its most devastating diseases, the coffee leaf rust. He deftly synthesizes agricultural, social, and economic histories with plant genetics and plant pathology to investigate the increasing interdependence of the world's coffee-producing zones. In the process, he illuminates the progress and prognosis of the challenges--especially climate change--that pose an existential threat to a crop that global consumers often take…


Book cover of Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis

Mallory McDuff Author Of Our Last Best Act: Planning for the End of Our Lives to Protect the People and Places We Love

From my list on change your relationship with death and heal Earth.

Why am I passionate about this?

I teach environmental education at Warren Wilson College outside Asheville, North Carolina, where I’ve raised my two daughters in a 900-square-foot campus rental with an expansive view of the Appalachian mountains. My students work in jobs ranging from managing the herd of cattle to growing vegetables for the cafeteria. After the sudden deaths of my parents, I decided to take this one-year journey to revise my final wishes with climate change and community in mind as a legacy to my children and my students. I’ve written five books, including the forthcoming Love Your Mother: 50 states, 50 stories, & 50 women united for climate justice (April 2023). 

Mallory's book list on change your relationship with death and heal Earth

Mallory McDuff Why did Mallory love this book?

A friend recommended this slim book of 100 pages that poses a profound and direct question: How should we live in the end times when the climate crisis threatens our very existence? How can we garner the moral courage to live with the responsibility our times demand of us—as individuals and in collective? These are heavy queries but the philosophical and poetic lens of the authors opens that space to approach the challenge with more grace than fear. Plus, it’s a book that can fit in your back pocket, perfect for walks outside when you’re thinking about life and death in uncertain times. 

By Robert Bringhurst, Jan Zwicky,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Learning to Die as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Truth-filled meditations about grace in the face of mortality." -MargaretAtwood In this powerful little book, two leading intellectuals illuminate the truth about where our environmental crisis is taking us. Writing from an island on Canada's Northwest coast, Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky weigh in on the death of the planet versus the death of the individual. For Zwicky, awareness and humility are the foundation of the equanimity with which Socrates faced his death: he makes a good model when facing the death of the planet, as well as facing our own mortality. Bringhurst urges readers to tune their minds to…


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Book cover of I Am Taurus

I Am Taurus by Stephen Palmer,

The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.

Each of the sections is written from…

Book cover of Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All

Joseph P. O'Connor Author Of Off Grid Solar: A handbook for Photovoltaics with Lead-Acid or Lithium-Ion batteries

From my list on understand future potential of renewable energy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve dedicated my career to renewable energy, because I think it really will save us from climate change disaster. Solar, wind, and advanced energy storage will usher us into the 21st century. I’ve seen many innovative people and companies use technology to create a better future. We still have a long uphill battle to reverse climate change, but we now have the technology that can help save our planet. It is time to implement it. These five books (in very different ways) give us the tools and understanding of how renewable energy will shape the future.

Joseph's book list on understand future potential of renewable energy

Joseph P. O'Connor Why did Joseph love this book?

The impending doom of climate change has been stressing me out for over a decade. It feels like my son will inherit a world that resembles the dystopian futures of Mad Max or Blade Runner. But the future we’re entering into will be more nuanced than that. 

This book helped me realize that the future may not be as bleak as I had once imagined. The environmental alarmists may have good intentions, but their efforts might be causing more harm than good.

By Michael Shellenberger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Apocalypse Never as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now a National Bestseller!

Climate change is real but it's not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem.

Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world's last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today's Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions.

But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die," contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong…


Book cover of To Lead As Equals: Rural Protest and Political Consciousness in Chinandega, Nicaragua, 1912-1979
Book cover of Sandino's Daughters Revisited: Feminism in Nicaragua
Book cover of Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History

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Interested in environmentalism, bananas, and Latin America?

Environmentalism 197 books
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Latin America 121 books