In this new analysis of Honduran social and political development, Dar degreeso Euraque explains why Honduras escaped the pattern of revolution and civil wars suffered by its neighbors Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Within this comparative framework, he challenges the traditional Banana Republic 'theory' and its assumption that multinational corporations completely controlled state formation in Central America. Instead, he demonstrates how local society in Honduras's North Coast banana-exporting region influenced national political development. According to Euraque, the reformism of the 1970s, which prevented social and political polarization in the 1980s, originated in the local politics of San Pedro Sula and other cities along the North Coast. Moreover, Euraque shows that by the 1960s, the banana-growing areas had become bastions of liberalism, led by local capitalists and organized workers. This regional political culture directly influenced events at the national level, argues Euraque. Specifically, the military coup of 1972 drew its ideology and civilian leaders from the North Coast, and as a result, the new regime was able to successfully channel popular unrest into state-sponsored reform projects. Based on long-ignored sources in Honduran and American archives and on interviews, the book signals a major reinterpretation of modern Honduran history.

In the early twentieth century, the Boston-based United Fruit Company controlled the production, distribution, and marketing of bananas, the most widely consumed fresh fruit in North America. So great was the company’s power that it challenged the sovereignty of the Latin American and Caribbean countries in which it operated, giving rise to the notion of company-dominated “banana republics.” In A Camera in the Garden of Eden, Kevin Coleman argues that the “banana republic” was an imperial constellation of images and practices that was checked and contested by ordinary Central Americans. Drawing on a trove of images from four enormous visual archives and a wealth of internal company memos, literary works, immigration records, and declassified US government telegrams, Coleman explores how banana plantation workers, women, and peasants used photography to forge new ways of being while also visually asserting their rights as citizens. He tells a dramatic story of the founding of the Honduran town of El Progreso, where the United Fruit Company had one of its main divisional offices, the rise of the company now known as Chiquita, and a sixty-nine day strike in which banana workers declared their independence from neocolonial domination. In telling this story, Coleman develops a new set of conceptual tools and methods for using images to open up fresh understandings of the past, offering a model that is applicable far beyond this pathfinding study.

Banana Republic is the story of a land mass which connects two continents. On its West Coast it has almost continuous range of mountains, some of which are volcanic. The entire length of Central America is in the Pacific rim of fire and often racked by earthquakes and ravaged by hurricanes. The seven nations of Central America have traditionally been the lunchbox of the great corporations and greedy nations. They have been used for their minerals, their natural resources, and their indigenous people. The mixed races of Central America have been the labor source of enormous riches. Almost all of the native peoples of Central America have been slaves at some point in history. Primarily none of the seven countries have ever achieved a stable and honest government. They have been wracked by revolution and civil wars throughout their history. This book is a story of the history and geography of a little-known part of the world. The geography ranges from arid desert, to mountainous terrain and impenetrable tropical jungles. Over the last 50 years it has been the home of the enormously wealthy drug cartels. Most of the ingredients used in the drugs can be grown in this climate and the governments mostly are amenable to allowing these illegal practices for a small payoff. The average reader will be shocked by some of the stories portrayed between the covers of this book.

The term "banana republic" is used to disparagingly describe a nation whose economy depends primarily on exports of a single item or service. As a result, foreign-owned businesses or industries frequently rule these nations. Typically, banana republics are unstable politically, have a highly stratified socioeconomic structure, and a small ruling class that controls access to wealth and resources.

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Considers the relationship between market liberalization, social movements, and everyday forms and narratives of work