My uncle recommended it. I had barely started it when we left on a cruise of the Panama Canal, sailing from LA. This book is a detailed, non-fiction account of France's selection of the canal site in Central America, the politics, diseases, intrigues, and construction of locks and "Big Dig".

I forgot all about the cruise ship activities and buried myself in this book. It awoke the "inner engineer" in me that I didn't know I had. I read it desperately night and day, hoping to finish before reaching the canal. Cruise ship stage shows? Nah! Cocktails with the captain? Forget it!

I did manage to finish the book before reaching Panama. Then I found that the travel across the Isthmus was as intense as the book itself. I couldn't bear to see particular shores of the canal floating by, anonymous and silent. Other parts were as thrilling as a fairy tale for the young. Upon reaching the Atlantic, I found myself in tears. That tells you how this book can change your outlook..even towards a body of water! A year later, the wonder is still with me.

In this illuminating account of the building of the Panama Canal, the author has provided significant background covering the period leading up to the development of the initial idea by the French right through to the completion by the US in 1914.

The book covers much more than the actual engineering and construction, going into considerable depth describing the key players, politicians, politics, commercial interests, bribery and even a military coup and annexation. All told, the initial canal company established by the French ended in both economic ruin and brought down the French Government due to scandal and bribery.

That aside, it recounts the Herculean efforts of the French in their struggle to build a sea-level canal, beset by natural trials of tropical diseases and the endless land slides which proved too difficult to conquer. The French ultimately gave up but were able to sell over what has been done to the US.

After a poor start, the Americans found the right people to manage the project and using the power of US government and the myriads of labourers from over 92 countries were able to bend nature to its will, completing the canal in 1914.

In all, the Canal would be the largest, most expensive and most complex project even undertaken to that point in time. It had led to the fall of the French Government, resulted in a US led military coup and annexation of Panama from Columbia, furthered tropical medicine understanding of the role of mosquitoes in disease transmission and showed the real potential of electrical power.

This is a well balanced account that captured the mood of the times but also highlighted the injustices that were found between the gold roll Whites and the silver roll Black labourers who were exposed to the most dangerous work and had to survive in truly terrible conditions, dying at a rate much higher than the whites. The Panama Canal Zone was in fact an extension of the Colonial (French) and Apartheid (US) policies of the time. Unfortunately, many recounts of the canal overlook the fundamental role of black labourers in the construction of the canal. Fortunately this book does not, kudos to McCullough for his balanced historical recount.

I can recommend this book to students of history, those interested in late 19th and early 20th century French US politics. Readers interested in a more thorough description of engineering may want to look for additional material.

Like every other David McCullough book I have read, I thoroughly enjoyed The Path Between the Seas. Will be traveling to Panama in 2 weeks, though not sure if will see the canal, but thought it would be interesting to learn more about its creation. McCullough book gives the rich drama that was behind this amazing engineering accomplishment.

The book has two major parts: the valiant but costly failed first attempt by the French to build the canal and the successful second attempt by the Americans. Both the French and the Americans started with the idea of just digging a massive ditch across the Panama to join the Pacific to the Atlantic – with no locks. However, not too long into the U.S. project, it was decided this approach was likely to never succeed due to the unreal amount of earth that would have to be removed. The more practical, but technical, challenging use of locks became the new design. The magic of the lock strategy was that once they raised a ship about 100 feet above sea level, they could flood large zones in the middle of panama, creating large lakes, that would allow easy passage through the center of Panama before descending, gain using locks, back to sea level on the far side.

In addition to the engineering story, McCullough spices things up with the story of how the United States and Theodore Roosevelt used a jiu-jitsu move to grab control of the canal zone from the Colombians. This sub-plot involves everything from spies to a bloodless Coup d'état.

No hesitation in recommending this book.

Tan titánico como el tema que aborda, este libro es sorprendentemente ligero de leer.

David McCullough tiene un estilo de escribir que recoge lo más importante de las personas y los hechos sin hacerte sentir que te está dando un listado de cosas pero tampoco sin distraerte con detalles que no son fundamentales para entender a las personalidades y situaciones de las que se desprendió una de las construcciones más impresionantes que haya hecho la humanidad.

Considerando el alcance y las dimensiones de la accidentada y complicada historia de la construcción del canal de Panamá, el autor logra que pases de página como si estuvieras leyendo una novela. Junto con el recuento de cómo nació y se concretó la idea de este camino que literalmente unió al mundo, hay pequeñas biografías de los jugadores elementales, como Ferdinand De Lesseps, Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, Theodore Roosevelt y George Gethals, entre muchos otros. Fueron tantos los actores que intervinieron en muchas áreas de especialidad que es una confirmación del talento de McCullough el que deje una impresión tan clara de cada uno de ellos, al resaltar las cualidades y defectos profesionales y personales que impactaron directamente en este proyecto.

Para apreciar de lo que trata este libro y para apreciar el libro en sí, lo único que hay que hacer es leerlo. Súper recomendable.

The Panama Canal is a remarkable engineering feat and the story of its building is very interesting. If you mainly want to know about the actual building then it is possible to read the third section alone. Much of the book concerns the French attempts 20 years earlier that involved speculation, graft, and engineering failure and the secession of Panama from Colombia which allowed the project to go forward. Technology had progressed to the point that when the US government took over the outcome was successful with strict financial oversight and amazing organization. I wish there had been more than the scant attention given to the West Indian Blacks who did the hardest physical work and were underpaid and not provided with the housing and other attention the American engineers and others were. Blatant racism against a group who suffered more from disease, injury, and death that any other. I also wish attention had been given to the plight of the Panamanians who were displaced by the huge lake that was created to provide the water needed to power the locks. The book was published in 1977, hopefully today these other important aspects of the project would be addressed.

I had reservations about 700-page tomes. Couldn’t you write it in 300 pages? But in McCullough’s defense, the Panama Canal story is a hell of story. The Panama Canal is not just any canal. There is a reason why it’s one of the 7 wonders of the modern world. For the 80km or so distance that a ship passes from Pacific to Atlantic (Caribbean), the amount of digging needed could have made a canal 55ft wide and as long as the US is wide.

Hot on the heel of success of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps is world famous and a pride of the French people. He was going to show the world the power of the French nation and make the share holders of the canal company rich by repeating his Suez feat, this time somewhere in the narrow isthmus connecting the two Americas. Except he didn’t and the shareholders essentially lost everything. It boils down to two things. First, Panama is not Suez. Digging a sea-level canal with the sandy soil and relatively flat land at Suez is no where nearly as challenging as doing it in the rocky geology of Panama with a non-trivial elevation. Second, the place is full of tropic diseases that on average kill off multiple workers a day. In the end, the French effort lasted more than a decade and ran up a bill of 1.5 billion Francs, more than 3 times the cost of Suez. It ended when the canal company runs out of money. Investigations were launched. Prime ministers resigned. Even Eiffel (of the Tower fame) who was going to supply locks to the canal got sentenced (acquitted later on appeal though).

Then came Uncle Sam. A new treaty was negotiated with the Columbia government, but was not ratified by their parliament when they heard the US paid more to the French taking over their leftover property than they paid Columbia. This (at least partly) triggered the independence of Panama. The US even sent a warship that prevented a Columbian warship from stopping the revolution/indepence. Much intrigue was behind all of that (no wonder 700 pages).

Then came the intrepid engineering team first led by John Stevens then George Goethals. They did everything the methodical way: improving the infrastructure and tools, tackling malaria and yellow fever, building good residential areas (with cinemas and YMCAs). In the peak month, the US excavation was 10 times that of the best month of the French effort. Even then, it took the US another decade to finish the job. However, people working at the job not only enjoyed good living conditions and had faith in contribution towards something much larger than themselves. You can find out exactly how much space they have in government-issued housing and how socialist the project was (did I mention it was 700 pages long?).

The Canal project was a model project carried out by the US government. It was efficiently managed, and capably executed — another wonderful example of the Reaganite axiom “government is the problem”. Today, more than 100 years after its completion, as I was visiting Panama City (in 2019), I was pointed out by my guide the rows of buildings (houses, hospitals, schools) built by the Americans still functioning and contributing to the local community. As we watched gigantic ships floated in the lock and smoothly transition from ocean to ocean in mere hours, it didn’t escape me that the entire price tag was about $7-10B in today’s currency. More than a century ago, a Republican president wanted to divide the continent and give us the Panama Canal. Today another Republican president wants to spend the same amount of money to divided the continent again, this time with a wall. Is that progress?

A thorough history of the French endeavors and American accomplishment of the Panama Canal as only McCullough can do!

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Pause for a moment, and look around the place where you live, and ask yourself how many of the things in your home got there in part because of ships that passed through the Panama Canal. The dream of a Central American canal that would link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, sparing ships the long and difficult passage around Cape Horn, was a long-standing one; and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, two great nations attempted to build that canal at Panama. One nation failed, and the other succeeded, and historian David McCullough tells that story with appropriately epic sweep and scope in his 1977 book The Path Between the Seas.

McCullough is one of the pre-eminent historians of our time; and as one reviews the life work of any great historian, one is likely to see certain areas of core interest, recurring themes. In McCullough’s case, one of his areas of focus seems to be the ability of hard-working Americans with innovative ideas to accomplish seemingly impossible goals. This theme comes through in other McCullough books like The Great Bridge, his 1972 study of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, or his 2015 study The Wright Brothers – and it is certainly much in evidence in this thorough and engrossing study of The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 (the book’s subtitle).

The Panama Canal today is so strongly associated with the United States of America, the nation that built the canal and controlled it for decades, that it is a striking thing to consider that originally, it was to be le canal de Panama, a French enterprise. The charismatic, larger-than-life Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had successfully led the construction of the Suez Canal, took on the effort with his customary vigor and energy, and the French tried for nine years to build a canal, from 1880 to 1889.

But the French had not reckoned with the Panamanian landscape’s predilection for canal-filling landslides, or with the incidence of diseases like malaria and yellow fever. Not knowing that specific species of mosquitoes caused those tropical diseases, the French undertook no efforts at mosquito control, and accordingly the casualties mounted.

Over the nine years of the French canal effort, about 21,000 people died. For comparison purposes, the dead on both sides after the Battle of Gettysburg totalled just under 9,000. To visit the French Cemetery outside modern Panama City, not far from the Pacific Ocean terminus for the Panama Canal Railway, is to see a singularly melancholy memorial to ill-fated endeavours and wasted lives.

Once the Americans had taken over the whole isthmian-canal enterprise, there were serious questions as to whether the canal would be a Panama Canal or a Nicaragua Canal. A powerful and well-connected U.S. Senator from Alabama pushed hard for a canal across Nicaragua, believing that a more northerly canal, one closer to the U.S. Gulf Coast, would benefit his home state. But Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a French engineer who wanted to see the U.S.A. build a Panama canal, had his own ways of fighting for Panama: he sent to all 90 U.S. senators a one-centavo Nicaraguan stamp showing the country’s Mount Momotombo in mid-eruption, each with the caption “An official witness of the volcanic activity on the isthmus of Nicaragua” (p. 323). To this day, there are Nicaraguans who will say, “We lost the canal because of a postage stamp.”

In his historical works, McCullough, like all great historians, uses the events of the past to reflect present trends. For instance, McCullough writes of the work of Colonel William C. Gorgas, the U.S. Army doctor who identified the mosquitoes that cause yellow fever and malaria; Dr. Gorgas saved thousands of lives by going after those insects in their wet and swampy breeding places. While recognizing Dr. Gorgas’s achievements, McCullough emphasizes that Dr. Gorgas’s ideas did not by any means enjoy universal acceptance in his time – and that Dr. Gorgas is not alone in that regard:

“In the conventional understanding of history, human advancement is marked by specific momentous steps: on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers fly in a heavier-than-air machine and at once a new age dawns….But seldom does it happen that way. Ideas [like diseases] have their period of extrinsic incubation, and particularly if they run contrary to what has always seemed common sense. In the case of the Wright brothers, it was five years after Kitty Hawk before the world accepted the idea that their machine could fly.” (p. 422)

McCullough is writing about Dr. Gorgas’s detractors in the early 20th century, but he could have been writing about “anti-vaxxers” today.

McCullough has a great gift for the telling anecdote, the little story that illuminates and emphasizes the larger themes of his narrative. A characteristic example from The Path Between the Seas is his recounting of a lunch meeting, in the spring of 1906, between U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and author H.G. Wells. Roosevelt was, of course, an enthusiastic champion of the canal, and of technological progress generally; by contrast, Wells, “unlike [Jules] Verne…had grave misgivings about the long-range consequences of science and technology” (p. 498).

Asked by Wells about the long-term value of all this rapidly accelerating technological change, Roosevelt responded by criticizing the pessimistic outlook of Wells’s novel The Time Machine (1895): “Suppose after all that should prove to be right, and it all ends in your butterflies and morlocks. That doesn’t matter now. The effort’s real. It’s worth going on with. It’s worth it – even then” (p. 499; emphasis in original). In the conversation of these two early-20th-century titans, one sees attitudes toward scientific change and its possible consequences that resonate with us today.

McCullough sounds very much at home explaining all aspects of the saga of the building of the canal: engineering, technical, hydraulic, political, diplomatic, topographical – all of it becomes clear under his tutelage. And the reader is likely to finish The Path Between the Seas feeling strongly impressed by the achievements of those who built the canal – as when McCullough tells of the original electrical control panels installed for the opening of the canal in 1914 and then reports that

More than half a century later the same control panels would still be in use, functioning exactly as intended, everything as the engineers originally devised. “They were very smart people,” a latter-day engineer at Miraflores [Locks] would remark. “After twenty-one years here I am still amazed at what they did.” (p. 603)

I read The Path Between the Seas on a trip to Panama. It was a glorious thing to visit the Panama Canal and see one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World – to stand on the visitors’ deck at the Miraflores Locks and watch the Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier Great Fortune being pulled westward through the locks by four mighty locomotives. McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas is a great chronicling of this great human achievement.

Exhaustive and exhausting!
I had wanted to read this book for some time having visited Panama and seen the mighty canal achievement for myself. The book is a challenge; long and densely packed with detail, some more interesting to me than others. At times I wanted the rambling political descriptions to be over. However I was fascinated by the in-depth history of the project in terms of medicine and the grave impact disease had on the whole enterprise. Panama is a place of stark contrasts with its modern city and shopping malls and the sight of colossal ships making their transit through the canal just a stone's throw from thick, dripping rainforest. We walked a section of the Camino de Cruces ( the old walking route that originally ran from Caribbean coast to the Pacific) Even this relatively small section from outside the city to the Chagres River is a challenging hike over rough terrain amongst dense vegetation and in intense heat. What it must have been like for the workers of the canal with no modern conveniences is emphasised again and again by McCollough.
The Path Between The Seas is a worthy achievement and a worthwhile journey, even for the non-engineers of the world, if you can make the time for it.

An extremely detailed account of how the Panama Canal was built. Since I have visited the Canal a number of times, I figured it was time to learn more about it and I'm glad I did.

This was a wonderful book by one of my favorite authors, David McCullough, on the building of the Panama Canal. I have had this book on my shelf for a long time, but hesitated to read it because it was the last of David McCullough’s books that I hadn’t read, and I didn’t want to finish reading all his books! I knew that I would enjoy the engineering aspect of this story, but didn’t realize how many other sides of this story would be completely fascinating. Here are a few details of the story of the building of the Panama Canal that I found to be very interesting.

Initially, the French worked to build the canal, led by the charismatic, visionary builder Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had overseen the construction of the much smaller, simpler Suez Canal. He was a captivating speaker and had incredible powers of persuasion - he could instill confidence and faith in his listeners, leading them to believe that he could accomplish almost anything.

The first difficult decision was which location yielded the best route for the canal, and much debate ensued over the Nicaragua vs. the Isthmus of Panama route. Eventually, it was decided to follow the Panama route, which was part of Colombia at the time, since it was the shortest distance from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean at 50 miles. Actual digging began on January 20, 1882. It immediately became clear that everything, everything, had to be brought to Panama, including the men to do the work. It was an enormous effort to put together all the support materials required to provide living for the large labor force (reaching as much as 50,000 people in later years) that would converge on the Isthmus to build the canal.

Because of a complete lack of understanding of tropical diseases, many, many people died from disease, particularly during the French campaign. In fact, the American doctor who finally led a successful effort to decrease these diseases said, "Had the French been consciously trying to propagate malaria and yellow fever, they could not have provided conditions better suited for the purpose." An estimate early on was “that of every four people who came out from France at least two, often three, died of fever.” After nearly a decade of very difficult and slow progress, the French effort ground to a halt. An investigation into what went wrong later described the French attempt to build the canal had been a “willful deception at every turn” and “a stupendous mistake from the beginning.” The collapse of the canal company, which happened officially in February 1889, was “the largest, most terrible financial collapse on record, a stupendous event historically.” The French canal effort had been fraught with fraud, breach of public trust, bribery, misuse of funds, and blackmail. The investigation that followed included a much-publicized duel, a probable suicide, implications of dozens of involved government officials, two trials, and worldwide fascination. The French effort had spanned a decade and cost $287 million.

Following French failure, the United States saw an opportunity to step in and complete the undertaking. Teddy Roosevelt saw the canal as an indispensable path to global destiny for the United States of America. There was a confusing, complicated battle in the US to decide whether they should pursue a new route through Nicaragua or take over the French route through Panama. Prominent men who helped secure the Panama route were William Nelson Cromwell and Philippe Bunau-Varilla, along with the key support of President Roosevelt. After challenging negotiations with the Colombian government regarding the canal, the US supported a revolution on the Isthmus, which led to the establishment of a new independent country: the Republic of Panama. The revolution was strongly supported by Teddy Roosevelt, and it was said that “without the military presence of the US…the Republic of Panama probably would not have lasted a week.” The $50 million that the US paid to France and Panama to be able to build (and govern) the canal was more than what they had paid for the Louisiana Territory, Alaska, and the Philippines combined.

At the beginning of the US plan, Dr. Gorgas led a heroic effort to stamp out malaria and yellow fever by wiping out mosquitos throughout key cities/areas in Panama, similar to what he had accomplished in Havana, Cuba a few years earlier. His dedicated effort led to drastic reductions in disease and vastly cut down deaths on the Isthmus.

A key change in philosophy by American engineers was to see the building of the canal fundamentally as a railroad problem, as it was the lifeline along which men, food, supplies, and dirt would move. An enormous effort to improve the rail lines and corresponding equipment was undertaken, which made a large impact on the US effort.

Much debate for many years over which type of canal to build – a sea-level canal or a lock canal. Finally, thankfully, it was decided to build a lock canal, which included the building of a large dam to create an enormous man-made lake through which boats would cross 23 miles of the Isthmus. The Army engineers took over the last seven years of construction of the canal, including excavation, building of the dam, and design/construction of the enormous locks. It took years to complete the Culebra Cut, a 9-mile stretch through the mountains that required an unimaginable amount of excavation.

It is difficult to comprehend the sheer magnitude and scale of this project. The total cost was $639 million. There were approximately 25,000 deaths, a staggering number, most of which occurred during the French phase, and most of which were of black workers from the Caribbean. The total amount of dirt excavated to build the canal was about 262 million cubic yards, approximately four times the original estimated amount. All in all, it was a humongous effort that took 20 years to accomplish. The cost – any way it is measured – was large, but the final result was a magnificent success that linked the oceans. This was a well-researched and wonderfully-written book about a truly remarkable achievement.

We really don’t grasp at all just how much people worked and sacrificed to make our lives so easy today. This story is a great testament to the power of human persistence. There are so many reasons why the canal project should have failed (and did fail). Cost, disease, death, technological constraints, politics, armed rebellion, corruption, bankruptcy, mudslides, rock slides.

I walk away from the book with a totally different perspective about the difficulties of the modern workplace. Yes, we can do hard things. And we can do them without getting too hung up about the commute, the air conditioning, the dull aspects… so many of our problems seem puny in comparison. I now feel a need to make a pilgrimage to the canal just to behold the great modern miracle of it all.

Oh, and so many interesting characters: the French superstar engineer, the army engineer determined to find a way no matter what, the epidemiologist figuring out by repeated trial and error how to eradicate yellow fever and malaria, and the American President Theodore Roosevelt.