Fordlandia: Brazil Isn't Michigan

# Ford Landia: Henry Ford's Wild Amazon Utopia

Henry Ford wasn't just a car guy—he was a visionary businessman with some deeply eccentric ideas about how people should live. When rubber became scarce in the 1920s, Ford decided he'd build his own rubber plantation in the Amazon, but what he really wanted to create was a utopian society transplanted straight from rural Michigan, complete with square dancing and his personal moral standards. This episode dives into how Ford's grand experiment in Brazil became a chaotic collision of industrial ambition, tropical reality, and one man's stubborn refusal to adapt, featuring cafeteria riots, escaped executives, and the introduction of a pest that literally ate their crops.