Matt Garcia is Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies and of History at Dartmouth College. His books include From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement, which received the Philip Taft Award for the Best Book in Labor History.
An engaging chronicle of an idealistic but flawed businessman as
well as a dissection of the postwar merger craze with no small
relevance to today.
*Wall Street Journal*
Using the genre of biography, Garcia shows how the combination of a
particular religious upbringing, the wider geopolitical context,
and the realities of the business world made it impossible for
Black to fulfill his ambitions.
*American Historical Review*
Eli and the Octopus focuses on one individual to tell a story that
is emblematic of an era. In this story, readers learn about Eli
Black, but we learn more about migration, divisions within American
Judaism, meatpacking, lettuce transportation, unions, sunglasses
production, and mergers and conglomerates.
*History Today*
Garcia’s portrayal of Black is sympathetic and somewhat rueful,
finding pathos in the disconnect between Garcia’s ‘good intentions’
and the inevitability that the ‘imperatives of turning a profit and
serving investors’ would outweigh ‘any virtuous impulse.’ The
result is a plaintive study of the challenges of trying to change a
system from within.
*Publishers Weekly*
Eli and the Octopus is a deeply informed study of one of the most
enigmatic figures to arise in the Mad Men era of merger mania and
conglomerate-building. Beyond its inherent tragedy, this story adds
richly to our understanding of how corporate America became what it
is today.
*Diana B. Henriques, author of The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff
and the Death of Trust*
Piecing together the Shakespearean saga of rabbi-turned-business
tycoon Eli Black, Matt Garcia offers a compelling, cautionary tale
on the limits of corporate social responsibility. The
unvarnished—but not unsympathetic—portrait is a history with great
current relevance.
*Miriam Pawel, author of The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A
Biography*
A gripping story worth telling. In this deeply researched book,
Garcia weaves together American Jewish history, American business
history, and American labor history, all through the many lives of
a remarkable and ultimately tragic individual.
*Hasia R. Diner, author of Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the
World*
A marvelous book that embodies the inherent tension between our
religious and ethical senses and the compromised and corrupt
business of our daily lives. Eli Black's rise and fall is but an
exaggerated illumination of the human condition.
*Nelson Lichtenstein, author of State of the Union: A Century of
American Labor*
In this riveting tale of United Fruit's Eli Black, Garcia walks
right into the center of business history, adds union power into
the mix, and shows the impossibility of pursuing both corporate
profits and social responsibility. Black wanted to believe that his
private machinations were for the public good, in keeping with his
Jewish faith. But meatpacking workers in the Midwest, the United
Farm Workers in California, and banana workers in Honduras—all of
which Garcia links in a seamless narrative—paid the price for
Black's market-driven policies. Eli and the Octopus is a powerful
and cautionary tale of the true nature of corporate strategy,
however well-meaning the outrageously wealthy who pursue it.
*Dana Frank, author of The Long Honduran Night*
A revelatory exploration of Eli Black and his struggle to remake
modern business into a vehicle for positive social change. In a
moment of growing inequality and corporate power, Eli and the
Octopus could not be more timely or more important.
*Karl Jacoby, author of The Strange Career of William Ellis: The
Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire*
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