Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.87503
EAN: 9780743262132
ISBN: 0743262131
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 704
Publication Date: 2004-05-25
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Studio: Simon & Schuster

The building of the Panama Canal was one of the most grandiose, dramatic, and sweeping adventures of all time. Spanning nearly half a century, from its beginnings by a France in pursuit of glory to its completion by the United States on the eve of World War I, it enlisted men, nations, and money on a scale never before seen. Apart from the great wars, it was the largest, costliest single effort ever mounted anywhere on earth, and it affected the lives of tens of thousands of people throughout the world. Here in all its heartbreak and eventual triumph the epic adventure is brought vividly alive by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such books as The Johnstown Flood, The Great Bridge, Truman, and John Adams.

Filled with vivid detail and incident, The Path Between the Seas is not only a fact-filled account of an unprecedented engineering feat; it is also the story of the people who were caught up in it -- some to win fame and fortune, others to have their reputations and even their lives destroyed. For many it was the adventure of a lifetime, an adventure whose like will never be seen again. Out of it came a revolution, the birth of a new nation, the conquest of yellow fever, and the expansion of American power.

Told from many viewpoints, this is an account drawn from previously unpublished and undiscovered sources, from interviews with actual participants and their families, from material gathered in Paris, Bogotá, Panama, the Canal Zone, and Washington. It is a canvas filled with memorable people: Ferdinand de Lesseps and his son Charles, trying to repeat de Lesseps's Suez triumph; Jules Verne; Paul Gauguin; Gustave Eiffel; A. T. Mahan and Richard Harding Davis; Senator Mark Hanna; Secretary of State John Hay; the incredible Philippe Bunau-Varilla, "the man who invented Panama"; Dr. William Gorgas; the forgotten American engineer hero John Stevens; Colonel George Washington Goethals; and, above all, Theodore Roosevelt, who "took Panama" in 1903 and left his indelible stamp on the canal.

As informative as it is fascinating, The Path Between the Seas is history told in the grand manner. With novelistic urgency it presents one of the great stories of all time in an account that will remain definitive for many years to come.

With two detailed maps and more than eighty photographs.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Audacious and improbable (4.25*s)
Comment: This book is a highly informative account of the entire history of the contemplation and building of the Panama Canal involving many nations across several decades. The difficulties facing any entity, private or public, considering building an Isthmus-crossing canal were unbelievable: the sheer complexity of the canal design; the volume of earth to move and the size of the structures to build; the huge and multi-dimensional labor force; the tremendous earth-moving machinery required and its effective usage; the magnitude and difficulties of coordinating all the work; the decimating impact of yellow fever and malaria on the work force; and the logistics of supplying an obscure part of the world. In addition, the political maneuverings involving the governments of France, the US, Columbia, and Panama and any number of lobbyists during several periods were crucial in deciding the location and type of an Isthmus-crossing canal, as well the decisions to proceed. The debate of whether Panama or Nicaragua was most appropriate for a canal was waged repeatedly with final decisions being made on little more than a coin-flip.

Personalities are very important in the author's story. He scarcely conceals a predisposition to the belief that brilliant and appropriate men will eventually rise to meet the most difficult of challenges. Perhaps surprising to most readers is that the first attempt to build a canal across Panama was made by a private French conglomerate led by the charismatic aristocrat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps in the 1880s. While his dominating personality persuaded many to undertake the huge risks of building a canal in Panama, his complete lack of technical competency and his tendency to ignore and conceal serious problems, thus deceiving investors, were factors in the collapse of the French effort after a near-decade of prodigious but ultimately futile efforts. What was to be a triumph of French ingenuity turned into bitter recriminations, with jail time being served by a few scapegoats.

The middle third of the book is devoted to the politics of the US taking on the task of building a canal and the support of the US of the Panamanian coup in 1903. Powerful interests led by Sen John T. Morgan supported a Nicaraguan canal but President Theodore Roosevelt threw the weight of his office behind, what he considered to be the more practical alternative, Panama. An enigmatic Frenchmen, part of the de Lesseps effort in Panama, Philippe Bunau-Varilla not only was persuasive during that period but coordinated the Panama takeover. Though the US quickly came to terms with Columbia over the loss of Panama, that flexing of American power rankled for years in Latin America.

The last section of the book is an amazing story of the completion, with substantial alteration, of the original French canal. After some lackluster appointees were replaced and administrative structures streamlined, serious advancement of the project began. Again, very talented individuals were key to the progress. Dr. William Gorgas was able to implement a country-wide program of eradicating mosquitoes, the carriers of yellow fever and malaria. John Stevens, a veteran of railroad design, in his role as chief engineer undertook a vast improvement of the infrastructure of Panama, such as housing, sewerage, and water supply, greatly improving the well-being of the labor force and also devised a means of non-stop digging and movement of dirt. The author suggests that Stevens' efforts were perhaps most important for the project's completion, yet he is largely forgotten because he prematurely resigned. His successor, George Goethals, though rather aloof, proved to be an equally able administrator and saw the Panama Canal through to its completion in 1914.

The story told is complicated with many considerations and individuals involved. However, at times, almost too much detail is provided - too many names, too many physical descriptions of people. The luminous personality of de Lesseps gets excessive attention, as well as the political intrigue in France and the US. It was not the author's intent to write an exposition on canal building; the approach is far more social, political, and economic. It's impossible to read this book without coming to realize the sheer audacity and improbability of building a canal across Panama, especially one hundred years ago.

PS. Though not especially emphasized by the author, this book is a cautionary tale for grandiose schemes and schemers. In this case the half-baked plan eventually was successful, but at tremendous costs in lives, savings of small investors, and total funds. One need only look at the financialization of the US economy and the costs to most us to see that con men are alive and well.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Boring
Comment: Very factual but exteeeeeeeeemly boring and wordy. I read it before going through the cannal and it helped me greatly to enjoy the trip, but it could be 1/4 the size and still do the job.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A man, a plan, a canal . . .
Comment: The epitome of what a general narrative history should be-informative, fun, inspiring.

McCullough begins by tracing the idea of an isthmian canal in history, continues with the two abortive French efforts to complete the canal, and finally covers the completion of the canal in its political and technical aspects under the leadership of the United States.

The technical aspects are fascinating for their details and bridging of a fifty year period of incredible engineering progress, the political aspects are interesting for their far-reaching impact (Central American hatred of the United States still lingers from the blatant grab of Panama from Columbia), but mostly the human story of the men, women, and larger-than-life lesser gods (de Lesseps, Buneau-Varilla, Roosevelt, Goethals) who made it happen is what remains most classic in this history..

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Lighting a path thru history
Comment: This Pulitzer-prize winning book tells of the creation of the Panama Canal, and in doing so, gives a great introduction to the American century. The book is written in third person, and follows the who, what, when, where and how of this great undertaking. The who includes engineers, politicians, business leaders, and common laborers who manned the machines that dug the canal. The what includes detailed descriptions of the work that went into making the canal, with a good recall of the businesses involved in this great undertaking, such as General Electric. The when is 1870 - August 1914, a period that straddles the turn of the century and the transition from Europe to America as the economic powerhouse of the world, a nation that could perform the greatest feat of construction and engineering then known to man. The where is not just Panama, but also the US and France, where political decisions were made that determined the location of the canal, and the type of canal it would become. The how is where this book excels. The author does a great job in examining the political processes in Congress and Roosevelt's administration that led to America taking over the construction. Names like Robert Woods (of Sears fame), John Knox, Gustav Eiffel (Eiffel Tower), and other celebrities of that time were linked in some way or another to the canal are all mentioned in this tome.

The book also comes with two sets of photographs. These include photos of the key individuals along with shots of the canal in various stages of completion. All in all, a great book for a great story.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A great story
Comment: David McCullough provides a fascinating description of the trials and tribulations that led to the creation of the Panama Canal, covering the diverse characters, geography, science and politics in great story telling form.

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