"Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall." -- Proverbs 16:18 (NKJV)
Henry Ford prided himself on rationalizing the economic model of the assembly line by preparing, if necessary, to develop his own raw materials so that neither shortages nor costs would derail his search for ultimate efficiency. Like many before him and many since then, Ford found out the limits of his business concept the hard way . . . by seeing others develop better alternatives that undermined his company's success.
One of these concepts involved avoiding the risk of paying too much for rubber, an essential raw material for tires and components. Rubber originally came from wild harvesting in the Amazon before some seeds were taken to Southeast Asia where plantation operations revolutionized production and lowered costs. Ford dreamed of creating massive, industrial-style plantations in the Amazon. His only problem was that he didn't bother to check out the agricultural facts: It was a bad idea because rubber plants are very vulnerable to disease in the Amazon when planted close together. Employ the same idea in other parts of the world, as Firestone did in Africa, and it would have worked.
A series of other miscalculations and errors followed so that Fordlandia became an expensive social experiment into creating Midwestern-style living in the jungle. Historian Greg Grandin expands the story to provide a glimpse into Henry Ford's personal philosophies and management style.
The results of trying to establish Fordlandia and the later developments were bad for virtually everyone, the typical consequences of ill-considered ventures.
The book will tell you more than you could expect to learn on your own about this obscure Ford venture. You will also probably learn more about Henry Ford and his weaknesses than you wanted to learn. I would have enjoyed the book more if it had been briefer and more focused on just telling the Amazon part of the story.