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

My brain is fried. What an amazing, huge, history lesson that you never got in school, book. WOW. I do not even know how to review this.

Just know this; this is worth reading [listening to]. You will learn things you never ever knew. And you will never look at the Panama Canal [or as I like to call it "I have no idea how this canal got built"] the same again. And ALL you THINK you know about it, is probably incorrect. I know I was schooled [and therefore both my bestie and my mom were schooled] multiple times while listening to this.

Amazing.

The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 is a masterful recreation of the history of the planning, building, and operating of the Panama Canal. There was limited interest in Panama, then the northern province of Columbia, until gold was discovered in California after the Mexican War. As prospectors by the thousands scrambled to find the quickest way to get to California, a railroad was built across the isthmus of Panama whose stock quickly became the highest priced stock on the New York Stock Exchange. If a railroad was this profitable, how much more money could be made if a canal was built? Interest surged in building a 51 mile long canal through mountainous jungle in Panama to replace the railroad and rough excavations began under the leadership of French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps who went bankrupt in the effort. Once the United States entered the picture in a serious way under President Theodore Roosevelt, events progressed swiftly. The U.S. negotiated a treaty with Columbia and when the Columbian Senate delayed its ratification, the U.S. encouraged a revolution that ended Columbian ownership of Panama and allowed the newly independent nation of Panama to enter into a treaty with the U.S. that was much more advantageous to the United States than the previous treaty had been. Once that treaty had been ratified by both countries, construction of the Panama Canal begin in earnest. David McCullough has written a book that captures all of the personalities and events that led to the construction and operation of this canal that linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and wrote it in such a way that readers find themselves swept up into the story. Quite simply, I was unable to put the book down.

I just finished The Path Between the Seas (The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870 - 1914) by David McCullough. This book is an extremely thorough account of the building of the canal. The time and effort that would have had to go into writing this book is impressive to me. The only reason why I didn't give 5 stars is because it got too detailed in certain parts and it probably could have been condensed somewhat. The building of the canal was a worldwide effort (not just French and American) and it was very interesting to learn about the work and the human toll that it took. The main thing that shocked me was that approximately 25,000 people died building the canal (mainly from malaria or yellow fever)! The completion of the project came down really to 2 things: dealing with the mosquitoes and getting the "people part" figured out. To deal with the mosquitoes, an army doctor named William Gorgas was brought in to the Canal Zone to deal with the medical issues and he did an excellent job of it. On the "people part" George Goethals brought an organizational ability to the project never seen before in history (and possibly never will be seen again). One of my favorite lines from page 507 of the book was "Panama was a tumultuous assault for progress...". The engineering, technological, and human advances that concatenated in this project, prove that it truly was an "assault for progress". McCullough ends the book with these words: "Primarily the canal is an expression of that old and noble desire to bridge the divide, to bring people together. It is a work of civilization". So much of the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century was dedicated to the advancement of the human race. It is amazing to me that 100 years later the canal still operates essentially the same as when it opened. They built it to last and it has! Overall, this book was really good, but not as good as McCullough's The Great Bridge which in my opinion is his best book. Happy reading everyone!

One of the best management books I've read

I’ve enjoyed nearly every book I’ve read by historian David McCullough and The Path Between the Seas is no exception. He has a talent for bringing history alive and he does this in 3 primary ways.

1. He recounts all of the names and dates typically associated with a history book, but he does so in the form of a story.
2. That story is a human one, and McCullough delves into the biographies of the principal actors and the numerous struggles they faced.
3. Finally, he describes the technical and engineering problems associated with such a large-scale project in a wet and hostile jungle and the novel solutions required to overcome them.

Each of the above are placed in the context of the times and gives the reader a sense of what it must have been like to have lived through the events of the day.

Dig This!!

Back in 2015 I went to Panama and saw the canal. I am a traveler that prefers nature and human contact (not to mention food, drink and music) to technology, so I admit to being somewhat underwhelmed by the sights of the canal. Yeah wow, far out, pretty neat, etc. Wrong!! After reading this giant work on the building of the canal, I wish I had read its history before I went.

We start reading about the first, French effort to build the canal. Why did they choose Panama when other “paths between the seas” beckoned? How did they decide to finance it? What was the role of de Lesseps, the triumphant hero of Suez? And then we read of the disasters that followed—the disease, the challenging climate, the insistence on a sea-level canal when locks were the solution. McCullough goes into all sorts of interesting byways—like the fact that white men were never more than a small percentage of the workers during either the French or American attempts, most being from the black population of the Caribbean.

The French failed. Because they had financed the diggings with the money of a zillion stock holders, the bust really hit France. Their buildings, their machinery, their diggings all started to revert to the jungle. They had dealt with the government of Colombia because there was no such country as Panama, it being a state of Colombia. Certain people in America began to get the idea that America could build it—the young, energetic, ambitious country (add “racist” in here and you won’t be wrong). De Lesseps and some others lobbied for such a canal, mainly for the Americans to buy out all the French-owned rights, properties, and materials still in Panama. A Nicaraguan alternative loomed large for a long time, but at last, Panama squeaked through. But American efforts to clinch a deal with the Colombians fell through. Undeterred, the Yanks made an “arrangement” with some local Panamanians and lo and behold, Panama declared independence, we recognized it and a canal deal was finalized pronto. This did not go down well in Latin America. Especially since we demanded to control a ten-mile wide zone along the canal’s path.

The success of the American effort depended on conquering yellow fever, and to a lesser extent, malaria. McCullough gives plenty of attention to this. The first few years of American work were scarcely better than the French, but at last, thanks to medical advances and the realization that locks were the only way to go, the work started in earnest. From then, we follow the digging, the vast amount of earth removed, the various technical problems and triumphs, the racist divide between white workers and black, the conditions of work and life, and the various ups and downs of leadership. With over 1,400 reviews on here, I’m not going to get involved in details. Suffice to say that in modern dollars, the cost of the canal had to be over $447 billion plus many thousands of lives.

Though McCullough certainly does mention the local Panamanians, they are generally not part of the story for him. Over the years after the 1914 opening of the canal to traffic, there was a rising tide of opposition to American control and racist behavior. The colonialist position of the US became clearer and clearer and of course was used by those who opposed American policies in Latin America and the world. Just a year or so after the book was published, President Carter agreed to hand over the canal. About 20 years of joint control were followed in 1999 by complete control by Panama. I was told, back in 2015, that Panama was earning about ten million dollars a day from the passage of ships and a widening effort was underway. Panama was prospering and the canal operating smoothly.

The ships are charged by weight. Back in the 1920s, Richard Halliburton swam the whole canal over a few days. He weighed 140 pounds and so had to pay 36 cents! One of the thousands of interesting details.
Although 617 pages may seem a lot, I found that the book was so well-written and the topic so interesting that I went through it very smoothly.

(This was an abridged audiobook.)
This seemed to be basically a two-part history of the building of the Panama Canal. The first part being the failed French attempt to complete the work. After stepping out of the picture the USA came in to pick up where they had left off.

Listening to all the French names while running errands & doing short trips was a little confusing. Maybe this was more my fault than anyone else’s. Even knowing that they didn’t complete the job; I found myself pulling for them. Mastering Panama, the climate, the bugs... it was daunting.

A revolution & a change of countries & the building was back on track. The loss of life was incredible. After the mosquito was squashed disease was easier at least.

There were mind numbing numbers that recounted cubic yards of debris removed, water held back, track laid. Some of this was just a fog to me. I wanted a single leader to lock in on, but the faces just kept changing.

Maybe reading the book would be better. Maybe there would have been pictures. Lol. I found it just mildly interesting.

A couple of weeks ago, I was discussing my recent string of books chronicling enormous engineering projects (“The Great Bridge,” the World’s Fair part of “The Devil in the White City” and now “The Path Between the Seas”) with my friend Paul, and as I relayed the sacrifices made and the years dedicated by the men behind these works, Paul remarked, “Dude, can you imagine dedicating your life to building a f*cking bridge?” On many levels, this insight is full of wisdom. The engineers who undertook these feats traded friends, family, free time and any semblance of a normal life* to build these things and they did so without any hope of financial windfall beyond a very unspectacular salary. These guys would make the worst movie protagonists ever. Facing a choice between wealth and the girl, they choose Option C: massive feats of excavation. Thank God Brian Flanagan didn’t make a similar choice; Cocktail would have been a terrible bore.

*Actually, forget semblance. Some of these clowns got themselves killed. RIP John Roebling. Gone, but not forgotten.

…and yet, I think I kind of get it? As I read about the accomplishments of the men who built the Panama Canal, I found myself inspired. All the reward they needed came from the satisfaction of overcoming staggering adversity to build something tangible, along with the power and prestige that came from driving such an endeavor. It all just struck me as noble. Economically, this makes no sense; spiritually, I think it does.

My feeling on this matter is no doubt due in large part to the storytelling prowess of David McCullough. Just as in The Great Bridge, McCullough breathes life and humanity into the building of the Panama Canal, which, told by a lesser historian, could easily have been a dry recounting of a series of spectacular events. He does an especially nice job of describing the oppressive atmosphere in Panama, and the challenges posed to the French, and eventually the Americans as they tried to conquer that unforgiving jungle.

The only reason this gets 4 stars as opposed to McCullough’s more typical 5 is that I thought he spent a little too much time focusing on the non-canal-building parts of the process. From Ferdinand de Lesseps and the catastrophic failure of the original French Canal Company, La Société internationale du Canal interocéanique (not brought down by brevity, I dare say), to the eventual American acquisition and aid to the Panama Revolution, it felt like 80% of the book was complete before significant construction really got underway. I understand this was intentional, both because that’s what actually happened and because it highlights the incredible struggle involved with these projects before shovel even hits ground, but I felt it dragged at times.

Interestingly, my favorite part of the book was only tangentially related to the canal itself. I found the story of Dr. Gorgas' all-out war on mosquitos and the yellow fever and malaria that they cause to be completely enthralling. I think it’s because his solution was so horribly inelegant. Once he accepted the premise that mosquitoes carried these diseases, he basically said, “Alright, screw it. I’m just going to kill all the mosquitoes. In the jungle. In Panama.” It makes me giggle even saying it. How brash do you have to be to have that plan?! And yet, with incredible diligence and attention to detail, he basically pulled it off. Amazing.

I recommend this book to everyone who likes David McCullough (which I claim should just be everyone who can read) and especially to anyone who enjoys engineering projects on an un-matched scale. In fact, I think this (or maybe The Great Bridge) should be made mandatory reading for all college engineering students. I, for one, have never been more inspired to get out and build something. Anyone know if they need an Air Separation plant in Panama?

(One final thought: I would give a hefty, hefty sum to see one of those google earth slideshows of the Panama Canal as it was built. You know, the ones that always show glaciers melting and things like that. It would be incredible. I’m entertained just by looking at old maps of Panama and then comparing them to satellite photos today. It’s not even remotely close to the same place. If we invent a time machine anytime soon, I think going back and launching a satellite to take these pictures should be the first thing we do. Alright, at least top five.)