The Path Between the Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914

The Path Between the Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
by David McCullough

The Path Between the Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
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Book Summary Information

Author: David McCullough
Reader: Edward Herrmann
Edition: Audio Cassette
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Published: 2003-06-01
ISBN: 0743530179
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Book Reviews of The Path Between the Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914

Book Review: a master writer of history...
Summary: 5 Stars

David McCullough takes the incredible story behind the creation of the Panama Canal and weaves a fascinating look at what is essentially the biggest ditch digging story of all time. Not trying to belittle this amazing engineering accomplishment in the least bit just trying to reflect on a writer who can make such a story so fascinating. Granted, this is not an easy read, logging in at over 600 pages with every detail and political intrigue along the way but it sweeps the reader up in the telling of this story. McCullough captures the essence of the 'can-do' spirit of the times and the amazing talents of these people who created the path between the seas.

Summary of The Path Between the Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914

Winner of the National Book Award for history, The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.

Like his masterful, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography John Adams, David McCullough's The Path Between the Seas has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This audiobook is a must-listen for anyone interested in American history, international intrigue, and human drama.


On December 31, 1999, after nearly a century of rule, the United States officially ceded ownership of the Panama Canal to the nation of Panama. That nation did not exist when, in the mid-19th century, Europeans first began to explore the possibilities of creating a link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the narrow but mountainous isthmus; Panama was then a remote and overlooked part of Colombia.

All that changed, writes David McCullough in his magisterial history of the Canal, in 1848, when prospectors struck gold in California. A wave of fortune seekers descended on Panama from Europe and the eastern United States, seeking quick passage on California-bound ships in the Pacific, and the Panama Railroad, built to serve that traffic, was soon the highest-priced stock listed on the New York Exchange. To build a 51-mile-long ship canal to replace that railroad seemed an easy matter to some investors. But, as McCullough notes, the construction project came to involve the efforts of thousands of workers from many nations over four decades; eventually those workers, laboring in oppressive heat in a vast malarial swamp, removed enough soil and rock to build a pyramid a mile high. In the early years, they toiled under the direction of French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps, who went bankrupt while pursuing his dream of extending France's empire in the Americas. The United States then entered the picture, with President Theodore Roosevelt orchestrating the purchase of the canal--but not before helping foment a revolution that removed Panama from Colombian rule and placed it squarely in the American camp.

The story of the Panama Canal is complex, full of heroes, villains, and victims. McCullough's long, richly detailed, and eminently literate book pays homage to an immense undertaking. --Gregory McNamee

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