Fordlandia

August 12: The first Model T car rolled off the assembly line on this day in 1908. The “Tin Lizzie,” and the “Fordism” that came with it, have been featured in a range of literature, Huxley’s “year of our Ford” in Brave New World perhaps the most famous instance. But there is nothing in fiction to rival the true story told in Fordlandia (2009), Greg Grandin’s account of the company town Ford plunked down in the Brazilian rainforest.