Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Geographical Review, published by American Geographical Society on July 1, 1996. The length of the article is 7104 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Keywords: imperialism, Panama, Panama Canal Zone, representations, tropics.

Citation Details
Title: Jungle stories: North American representations of tropical Panama.
Author: Stephen Frenkel
Publication: The Geographical Review (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 1996
Publisher: American Geographical Society
Volume: v86Issue: n3Page: p317(17)

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Book Description
As a land bridge between the Americas and a passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Panama has always played a vital role in bringing worlds together.Today, Panama embraces its role as an avenue of international commerce while attempting to preserve the balance of culture, ecology and government. ... Read more

Amazon.com
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, writesDavid 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 McNameeBook Description
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.Download Description
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. In The Path Between the Seas, acclaimed historian David McCullough delivers a first-rate drama of the sweeping human undertaking that led to the creation of this grand enterprise. 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. Applying his remarkable gift for writing lucid, lively exposition, McCullough weaves the many strands of the momentous event into a comprehensive and captivating tale. Winner of the National Book Award for history, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, and the Cornelius Ryan Award (for the best book of the year on international affairs), The Path Between the Seas is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, the history of technology, international intrigue, and human drama. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (116)

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

I have just started reading this book.I'm most interested in the first part of the book so that I can better understand why the canal was built since I will be cruising through it in March.

The Path Between the Seas
Packed with political intrigue, engineering dreams, disaster, disease, death,deception, dynamite, determination, daring, decision making, and final dominence over jungle, mud, mosquitoes, rock, rain, and river to open the gateway between oceans for all the world....And it is all fully researched history.
A must read for visitors to the Panama Canal!

History as a Business Aid
I fully expected to enjoy reading McCullough's historical overview because I liked his style in 1776 and other books.

What was unexpected was the story's value as a business book, too.

McCullough uses frequent mentions of actual companies and brands to remind us of the important contributions of the private sector in this engineering innovation.

From Chapter 1
Stowed below on the "Guard" was the finest array of modern instruments yet assembled for such an undertaking--engineers' transits, spirit levels, gradienters, surveyors' compasses and chains, delicate pocket aneroid barometers, mercurial mountain barometers, current meters--all "for prosecuting the work vigorously and scientifically." (The Stackpole transits, made by the New York firm of Stackpole & Sons, had their telescope axis mounted in double cone bearings, for example, which gave the instrument greater rigidity than older models, and the introduction of a simplified horizontal graduation reading allowed for faster readings and less chance of error.)

In the midst of appreciating the construction highs and lows, he also sheds revealing light on the level of ineptitude, malfeasance, and amazingly blatant lies told to early investors.Clearly, the vision was large and the leaders charismatic in selling it.But the headline from THE NEW YORK TIMES on November 22, 1892 shows the collapse to be on a scale of Enron in its day:

A BIG FRENCH SCANDAL
AFFAIRS OF THE PANAMA CANAL COMPANY TO BE EXAMINED. -
-- TURBULENT SCENE IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES
-- DELAHAYE'S SWEEPING CHARGES OF BRIBERY
-- SENATORS, DEPUTIES, MINISTERS, FINANCIERS, AND EDITORS ACCUSED.

Historically his best; entertaining not so good.
I've always enjoyed the books of David McCullough:Truman, The Johnstown Flood, and The Great Bridge.But none of them prepared me for this experience.McCullough has outdone himself here.Actually the topic has driven him to this higher level.The building of the Panama Canal is an extremely complex story, and McCullough includes every twist, turn, challenge, and triumph in his story telling.Sometimes it seems like way too much detail.Almost every character, and there are hundreds, are physically described in detail, from the cut of their clothes to the style of the facial hair.We're told the numbers on the door of their hotel rooms, the names of the ships they travel in, the number of bolts used, the tons of cement poured, the billions of francs and dollars expended.This long book covers it all.Sometimes it's pretty slow going.But it never bogged down to a point where I closed the book and put it away.Instead, I slogged on through the mud, the jungles, the malaria and yellow fever, the mosquitoes, and the political intrigues.And there are a host of the latter, from the initial French undertaking, to the U.S. takeover of the project, to the debates on the best spot to locate the canal, to the gunboat diplomacy of President Teddy Roosevelt which irreparably tainted America's reputation in Central and Southern America.There are some terrific photographs of the experience included, and two maps.Unfortunately, the latter could have been better with more detail.It's impossible to determine the final route of the canal from either map.Also, a map showing the relationship of Central America to the rest of the hemisphere would have been very helpful. I ended up reading this book with an Atlas at hand. Further, a list of the participants with a brief thumbnail sketch would have been helpful, because of the large cast involved.After reading this book, you will know everything you want to know about this amazing achievement, and probably a lot more, too.McCullough is a master at what he does, and in The Path Between the Seas he has achieved his historical masterpiece, although a tad short on the enjoyment factor.

Great book about an amazing story
I really enjoyed the history of the canal especially the way it is presented
in this book. ... Read more