This is an excellent history of a monumental project, the likes of which no longer happen. I am also finding overlapping references to individuals in this book with other histories, Gorgas for example, who was featured in 'The Great Influenza' by John Barry is fleshed out more as his work in Panama fighting Yellow Fever and Malaria were the seminal works of his career The backstory of the French attempt and the resulting political backlash was very interesting also. A fact that is very much glossed over in most contemporary accounts. He illustrates the differences in the health, diet and living conditions while indicating the canal was really made a reality by mainly West Indian labor. There were some changes in the tone it was written as later chapters used more first person accounts reminiscent of Walter Lord.Īlthough the book was written in 1977, McCollough gives a fair and even-handed accounting of the non-American, non-white workers.

McCullough organized the book in an easy to understand fashion and it progressed logically. It reads much like a novel and as it progressed I thought it got better. I found 'The Path Between the Seas' to be very interesting, well researched and well written. 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. Applying his remarkable gift for writing lucid, lively exposition, McCullough weaves the many strands of the momentous event into a comprehensive and captivating tale. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. 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. 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.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. The National Book Award-winning epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal, a first-rate drama of the bold and brilliant engineering feat that was filled with both tragedy and triumph, told by master historian David McCullough.

A path between the seas