What We're Reading: Tracy

Fordlandia: the Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City, by Greg Grandin.

In 1927, Henry Ford bought 2.5 million acres of Amazonian jungle. His immediate purpose was the procurement of rubber for his factories, but his ultimate goal was the creation of an American style town, complete with Cape Cod houses, churches, movie theaters, and happily employed workers furthering his company's success.

Ironically, Ford's creation of affordable automobiles had led, through urban sprawl, to the very demise of the cozy, small town America he loved. With Fordlandia, he hoped to corner the rubber market and re-create his idyllic homeland at the same time, with an indigenous work force that he expected would be grateful for his intervention in their lives.

But the Amazon was not Michigan, and suburban houses, towering factories, and rigidly run assembly lines were not suited to its climate or people. Fordlandia, far from the worker utopia its creator assumed it would be, turned into a catastrophe, a landmark example of the consequences of colonialist hubris.

Fordlandia offers a revealing look at a legendary local figure and one of his most little-known, and disastrous, endeavors.