Wilcox, VandaOgle, GeneTice, Alaina Joy2025-06-042025-06-042025Tice, Alaina Joy. "That’s Bananas! A Comparative Analysis of The United Fruit Company and the Royal Banana Monopoly, 1920s-1940s". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2025.https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14490/1061Thesis (B.A. in History, Minor in International Affairs)--John Cabot University, Spring 2025.The banana is not just a fruit, it’s also a source of power. Within American food culture, bananas grew to play an integral role through the manipulation of consumers and exploitation of workers by the United Fruit Company. However, the same cannot be said for the Royal Banana Monopoly’s attempts to adapt the banana into Italian food culture through the same means. Despite having banana monopolies that dominated Latin America and Somalia, the trajectory of the banana in Italian and American food cultures greatly differ. This thesis compares the neocolonial practices of the United Fruit Company that operated in Latin America and the colonial Royal Banana Monopoly that operated in Somalia. By comparing the challenges that both companies faced throughout their supply chains, it is evident that the Royal Banana Monopoly was unable to adapt the banana into Italian food culture due to its inability to navigate the same challenges that its American counterpart could.vii, 76 pagesenAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Banana tradeSocial aspectsThesis