Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
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Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad—the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.
The U.S. government pitted two companies—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads—against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes vibrantly to life.
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Level 8.5, 28 Points
Stephen E. Ambrose. (2000). Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869. Simon & Schuster.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Stephen E. Ambrose. 2000. Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869. Simon & Schuster.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Stephen E. Ambrose, Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
MLA Citation (style guide)Stephen E. Ambrose. Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
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- bioText: Stephen E. Ambrose was a renowned historian and acclaimed author of more than thirty books. Among his New York Times bestsellers are Nothing Like It in the World, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, D-Day - June 6, 1944, and Undaunted Courage. Dr. Ambrose was a retired Boyd Professor of History at the University of New Orleans and a contributing editor for the Quarterly Journal of Military History.
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- In this New York Times bestseller, Stephen Ambrose brings to life the story of the building of the transcontinental railroad, from the men who financed it to the engineers and surveyors who risked their lives to the workers who signed on for the dangerous job.
Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad—the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.
The U.S. government pitted two companies—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads—against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes vibrantly to life. - gradeLevels
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July 31, 2000
On May 10, 1869, telegraphers sent the word done from Promontory Point, Utah, throughout the nation, signaling the completion of what Walt Whitman referred to as "the road between Europe and Asia." The transcontinental railroad, which connected the vast American territories, cut the trip from New York City to San Francisco from many months to seven days. Ambrose's (Undaunted Courage) epic account, diligently and powerfully read by DeMunn, details the incredible mobilization of manpower and financing that was "the very embodiment of system." He tells it all with verve: the financial finagling, the impulse to simplify by "exterminating" Native Americans, the backbreaking work and the fierce competition between railroad companies that fueled the effort. This gritty, momentous tale of the personalities that pressed across the wild American West with rail and tie celebrates the feat that brought the U.S. into the modern age. Simultaneous release with the S&S hardcover and trade paperback. (Forecasts, July 3). (Aug.)n
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August 28, 2000
Eminent historian Ambrose notes that he once viewed the investors and businessmen who built the transcontinental railroad as robber barons who bilked the government and the public. But in his rough-and-tumble, triumphant saga--sure to appeal to the many readers of Ambrose's bestseller Undaunted Courage--he presents the continent-straddling railroad, yoking east and west at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, as a great democratic experiment, a triumph of capitalist organization, free labor, brains and determination that ushered in the American Century, galvanized trade and settlement, and made possible a national culture. To critics who charge that the railroad magnates were corrupt and grew obscenely rich and powerful through land grants and government bonds, Ambrose replies that the land grants never brought in enough money to pay the bills and, further, that the bonds were loans, fully paid back with huge interest payments. But this argument fails to convince, partly because Ambrose does a superlative job of re-creating the grim conditions in which the tracks were laid. The Central Pacific's workers were primarily Chinese, earning a dollar a day. Union Pacific workers were mostly Irish-American, young, unmarried ex-soldiers from both the Union and the Confederacy. Accidental deaths were commonplace, and the two companies, notwithstanding strikes, slowdowns and drunken vice, engaged in a frantic race, mandated by Congress, as the winner got the greater share of land and bonds. As a result of the haste, an enormous amount of shoddy construction had to be replaced. Native Americans, who wanted the iron rail out of their country, hopelessly waged guerrilla warfare against railroad builders who talked openly of exterminating them. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, letters, telegrams, newspaper accounts and other primary sources, Ambrose celebrates the railroad's unsung heroes--the men who actually did the backbreaking work. 32 pages of b&w photos. 6-city author tour.
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Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad—the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.
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Contents
Introduction
ONE Picking the Route 18301860
TWO Getting to California 18481859
THREE The Birth of the Central Pacific 18601862
FOUR The Birth of the Union Pacific 18621864
FIVE Judah and the Elephant 18621864
SIX Laying Out the Union Pacific Line 18641865
SEVEN The Central Pacific Attacks the Sierra Nevada 1865
EIGHT The Union Pacific Across Nebraska 1866
NINE The Central Pacific Assaults the Sierra 1866
TEN The Union Pacific to the Rocky Mountains 1867
ELEVEN The Central Pacific Penetrates the Summit 1867
TWELVE The Union Pacific Across Wyoming 1868
THIRTEEN Brigham Young and the MormonsMake the Grade 1868
FOURTEEN The Central Pacific Goes Through Nevada 1868
FIFTEEN The Railroads Race into Utah January 1April 10, 1869
SIXTEEN To the Summit April 11May 7, 1869
SEVENTEEN Done May 810, 1869
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Maps
From Chicago to Omaha
Nebraska
Wyoming
Nevada
Utah
California
- bisacCodes
- code: HIS036040
- description: History / United States / 19th Century
- code: HIS036050
- description: History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877)
- code: TRA004010
- description: Transportation / Railroads / History
