Nothing like it in the world: the men who built the transcontinental railroad, 1863-1869

Ambrose has selected the epic story of the construction of the transcontinental railroad as the subject for his latest book. If a topic has ever been studied by scholars, it is the building of the Union Pacific-Central Pacific railroads, which in 1869 opened the continent to steam-car civilization. An array of excellent studies already exists, including Maury Klein's volume Union Pacific: Birth of a Railroad, 1862-1892 (1987). What Ambrose contributes is social history. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of firsthand accounts by laborers and other "common people," but Ambrose has incorporated as much as possible in his effort to tell the human side of the construction story. Generally, this is a highly readable book, the result of a breezy writing style. Ambrose covers well the cast of major participants and offers the flavor of surveying, construction, and early operations. There are a number of minor historical errors, but they do not mar the telling of what arguably was the greatest building project in the US during the 19th century. General readers. H. R. Grant; Clemson University

The transcontinental railroad, whose completion was symbolized by the Golden Spike 131 years ago, is mostly abandoned, its function replaced by interstates and Internets. Yet the original roadbed can still be visibly traced across the plains, mountains, and deserts. And seeing it was no doubt the most enjoyable part of the research that Ambrose did for his gripping book about its construction. As in his suite of World War II books, Ambrose lauds the exertions of ordinary men, the Chinese and Irish laborers whose brawn built the first transcontinental railroad. He then gives more detailed portraits of the chief surveyors and engineers who managed the enterprise. On the Union Pacific end, Grenville Dodge was the key figure. A Union general who rebuilt tracks and trestles, Dodge thought like Lincoln when the subject was railroads: the country had to have them, and the government had to subsidize them. Ambrose describes how the two met in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1859, and talked of their shared vision of the iron horse puffing to California. The animating personality for this vision was Theodore Judah who, in addition to designating the route, rounded up some Sacramento shopkeepers with names like Stanford and Huntington to form the Central Pacific Railroad. Judah died of yellow fever before much track was laid, in spirit a casualty of construction because he contracted the disease in Panama, a route the railroad was intended to replace. Of the construction's other casualties, mostly anonymous, Ambrose makes commiserative note. This muscular yet flowing telling of the railroad's physical construction, will be a sure winner with the author's legions of readers. --Gilbert Taylor

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 sagaÄsure to appeal to the many readers of Ambrose's bestseller Undaunted CourageÄhe 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 heroesÄthe men who actually did the backbreaking work. 32 pages of b&w photos. 6-city author tour. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The transcontinental railroad was the greatest American engineering feat of the 19th century. It awed legions of reporters, photographers, and others in its own day and historians thereafter for its scale, innovation, and sheer brute strength. Ambrose (Undaunted Courage) is among those latter-day admirers. Relying on newspaper reportage, he presents the project through the eyes of the men working for the Union Pacific and Central Pacific and marvels at the blasting, gouging, grading, hauling, and more that transpire as the rival railroads punched through mountains, straddled gorges, and strode across the Plains in the race to link the continent. The cast is largeDarmies of skilled and eager Chinese workers, visionaries like surveyor Theodore Judah, and engineers and builders like Grenville Dodge, who marshaled huge sums of capital and solved intricate technical problems. Ambrose adds little to a much-told tale (his book does not supplant David Haward Bain's Empire Express, LJ 10/1/99), and he blinks at the ruthlessness and misery that made fortunes for the train barons. But in his hands every sledgehammer blow hits hard and every blast echoes. Recommended for public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/00.]DRandall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Acclaimed historian Ambrose (Comrades, 1999, etc.) takes on one of the biggest and most influential engineering projects in American history--the building of the transcontinental railroad. Ambrose begins his tale with the fascinating ""bureaucratic"" history of the railroad--the struggles to gain a federal mandate for the construction of the road and to fix starting points for it at a time when there was little going on in Washington except, first, the precursors to the Civil War and, later, the war itself. Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman are all shown to be ""railroad men"" and influential to the project. Ambrose then moves on to immense fiscal maneuvers necessary to finance the railroad, and to the ensuing Credit Mobilier scandal (regarding the financing of the railroad, and of the fortunes that were made, Ambrose makes a salient point when quoting historian Charles Francis Adams Jr., who claimed that ""when the Pacific Railroad was proposed, [no one] regarded it as other than a wild-cat venture . . . those men went into the enterprise because the country wanted a transcontinental railroad, and was willing to give almost any sum to those who would build it""). It is when the human drama of the actual construction of the railroad begins that Ambrose's narrative picks up speed. Although not many first hand accounts exist from railroad workers, what material he does have is woven skillfully into the whole to create a picture of various ethnic groups working together (and frequently warring with each other as well). A master historian and writer takes on another pivotal epoch in American history. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The transcontinental railroad, whose completion was symbolized by the Golden Spike 131 years ago, is mostly abandoned, its function replaced by interstates and Internets. Yet the original roadbed can still be visibly traced across the plains, mountains, and deserts. And seeing it was no doubt the most enjoyable part of the research that Ambrose did for his gripping book about its construction. As in his suite of World War II books, Ambrose lauds the exertions of ordinary men, the Chinese and Irish laborers whose brawn built the first transcontinental railroad. He then gives more detailed portraits of the chief surveyors and engineers who managed the enterprise. On the Union Pacific end, Grenville Dodge was the key figure. A Union general who rebuilt tracks and trestles, Dodge thought like Lincoln when the subject was railroads: the country had to have them, and the government had to subsidize them. Ambrose describes how the two met in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1859, and talked of their shared vision of the iron horse puffing to California. The animating personality for this vision was Theodore Judah who, in addition to designating the route, rounded up some Sacramento shopkeepers with names like Stanford and Huntington to form the Central Pacific Railroad. Judah died of yellow fever before much track was laid, in spirit a casualty of construction because he contracted the disease in Panama, a route the railroad was intended to replace. Of the construction's other casualties, mostly anonymous, Ambrose makes commiserative note. This muscular yet flowing telling of the railroad's physical construction, will be a sure winner with the author's legions of readers. ((Reviewed July 2000)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

The transcontinental railroad was the greatest American engineering feat of the 19th century. It awed legions of reporters, photographers, and others in its own day and historians thereafter for its scale, innovation, and sheer brute strength. Ambrose (Undaunted Courage) is among those latter-day admirers. Relying on newspaper reportage, he presents the project through the eyes of the men working for the Union Pacific and Central Pacific and marvels at the blasting, gouging, grading, hauling, and more that transpire as the rival railroads punched through mountains, straddled gorges, and strode across the Plains in the race to link the continent. The cast is large armies of skilled and eager Chinese workers, visionaries like surveyor Theodore Judah, and engineers and builders like Grenville Dodge, who marshaled huge sums of capital and solved intricate technical problems. Ambrose adds little to a much-told tale (his book does not supplant David Haward Bain's Empire Express, LJ 10/1/99), and he blinks at the ruthlessness and misery that made fortunes for the train barons. But in his hands every sledgehammer blow hits hard and every blast echoes. Recommended for public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/00.] Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.