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 enlarge | Author: Stephen E. Ambrose
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $16.99 (100%)
New (40) Used (195) Collectible (9) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  214 reviews
Sales Rank: 127152
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0743203178
Dewey Decimal Number: 385.0973
EAN: 9780743203173
ASIN: 0743203178
Publication Date: November 6, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Interesting popular account, not always balanced March 23, 2005
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this popular, uncritical history of the building of the transcontinental railroad, though I was also somewhat baffled by some of the books emphases and the author's frequent either hesitancy or inability to draw some of the larger conclusions of the event. Nonetheless, read with caution the book provides an admirable introduction to one of the crucial events in American history, and certainly the most readily available edition.
Before saying what I liked and what I didn't like about the book, I have to add a word of agreement with those who were rather stunned at how poorly written the book is. While it is indeed a bit longer than it needs to be, what amazed me even more was how poorly written it is. Ambrose's prose is almost aggressively banal at times, such as when he writes, "Decisions, once made, cannot be unmade. A thing is what it is." Unfortunately, such lapses are frequent in the book. Such a lapse is not the fault merely of the author, but of the editor and copyeditor. Someone should have called his attention to a host of "sentences that do not do, in philosopher Gilbert Ryle's happy characterization, "any work."
The virtues of the book is that he manages to bring into his narrative all of the major characters, all of the major events, and all of the essential elements, even if his story sometimes skips over key points. In all of the books he wrote after ceasing to be a serious scholar, Ambrose loves to write books around heroic figures. The problem with the railroad saga is that so many of the major characters were quite reprehensible. Ambrose's solution is to mute or ignore or only touch lightly upon their personal nastiness. The result is one of the least condemnatory accounts of the Big Four, the Ames brothers, Doc Durant, and the other key figures that exists. Less controversially, Ambrose does a much better job with such figures as the tragic Theodore Judah, the visionary who died before the railroad was begun but whose unflagging effort on its behalf did more than anyone to get it started. Likewise, Grenville Dodge emerges as a remarkably admirable individual, the Union Pacific's bookend to the Central Pacific's Judah. And Ambrose lavishes extensive praise on the nameless thousands who slaved on the railroad, especially the Chinese, who went from being profoundly discriminated against to gaining near universal admiration within the railroad building community for their exceptional skills as workers. Ambrose also acknowledges the key role that Abraham Lincoln played in getting the railroad off the ground.
My complaints with the book, apart from the rather flat style, are twofold. First, even when he hints briefly at the significance of some fact, he always draws back from expanding and developing it. For instance, in mentioning Lincoln's role, he could have but didn't tie it in with Lincoln's wider views about national unity. In his second annual address to Congress, what today would be called the State of the Union, Lincoln evoked an understanding of the nation that no one else of his time possessed. In looking at the national river system, Lincoln found the nation indivisibly unified by geography. Unlike many European nations, the United States possessed no natural geographical divisions, excepting perhaps Maine and the area west of the Great Divide. The river system of necessity unified Illinois and Mississippi, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The country was naturally a nation. One function that Lincoln saw the railroad playing, mentioned briefly by Ambrose, was in unifying the nation even further, even in bringing those areas west of the Rockies into the Union. This grand vision under girt much of Lincoln's work in preserving the Union, but Ambrose scarcely alludes to it. But without it, the precise reason why Lincoln was so avid to build the railroad cannot be fully understood.
Likewise, as Ambrose notes the railroads were the first great corporations in American history. Before this, the largest nationwide concerns were connected with the shipping industry or with fur trading. Connected to this is the fact that before the many fortunes made by people working in some relation to the railroad industry represented the first class of spectacularly rich individuals in American history. Before the 1860s and 1870s, the number of very rich Americans in the nation's history could be counted on the fingers of two hands. There had been Steven Girard, the shipping magnate, and later Cornelius Vanderbilt in the same concern, while John Jacob Astor made his fortune in furs and real estate. Today with literally thousands of millionaires and more than a dozen billionaires, we take for granted the existence of the super rich. But such was unheard of in 1860s America. The railroad and its supporting industries or the industries it enabled created the first widespread mega-wealth in the nation's history. This is one of the major stories connected with the development of the railroad, but Ambrose barely touches upon it.
My other main complaint with the book is the book's moral agnosticism with regard to the main figures. Yes, he does state many of the misdeeds of many of the key figures in both the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific, and mentions in several passages the scandals connected with the Crédit Mobilier, but the space he allots to it is rather amazing given its stature in American history. The Crédit Mobilier debacle ranks with the Teapot Dome scandal or Iran-Contra or Watergate in the great horrors in American history.
Part of this might be because Ambrose might have an axe to grind. In a rather amazing passage near the end of the book, Ambrose takes umbrage with a number of mainstream historians who see in the building of the transcontinental railroad a series of the greatest outrages perpetuated by business interests in American history. Ambrose does this unfairly by focusing on their criticisms of the land grants and the bonds, the latter which he correctly notes were not gifts but loans. What Ambrose does is overlook the rest of the overwhelmingly massive case against the primary figures of the Crédit Mobilier. One does not need to turn to socialist histories of the era such as Matthew Josephson's marvelous THE ROBBER BARONS for an accounting of the sins of the age. A host of progressive historians such as Charles Beard or mainstream historians such as Samuel Eliot Morrison or even conservative historians such as Daniel Boorstin would balance Ambrose's mildly whitewashed account. And all of these historians, I should note, are more highly regarded by scholars than Ambrose. What Ambrose simply refuses to state flatly is that many of the key leaders in the building of the railroad, men like Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker, Durant, and the Ames were monumentally greedy men, bent on self-aggrandizement and profit at any cost. Ambrose lays out all the evidence for this, but then curiously refuses to connect the dots. One wonders if political ideology prevents from drawing a conclusion that graphically demonstrates the dangers of unregulated big business, but whatever the motive, it is a massive blemish on the book.
Despite these rather sizable flaws in the work, the book is nonetheless a fun and very interesting read. No doubt this is in large part because it truly is one of the great stories in American history. One could argue that with the completion of the railroad, the United States truly did become one nation. Ambrose illustrates this also by pointing out that it was the first event following the Civil War that caused great rejoicing not only in the former Union, but in the former Confederacy. Hopefully, a more gifted historian and better writer will take up this story in a popular history at some point in the future. Until then, this book, despite its flaws, provides an entertaining account of one of the defining accomplishments in American history.
Paid by the word March 15, 2005
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Not being familliar with Ambrose's work, we're not sure if all his books are written like like this, but it seems that he was padding the text to be paid by the word! Repetitions of entire blocks of text, while admittedly properly footnoted and/or indexed give the book the feel of a report written by a highschooler.
Great Achievement! Book needs maps October 13, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The building of the transcontinental railroad was one of our greatest achievements. Ambrose is able to put us in the time period, where 500 barrels of blasting powder are used per day to blast the way through mountains to make tunnels for the railroad. Chinese are the ones to do the blasting as white folks are too scared to do it.
The advent of dynamite adds a new dimension, with it much greater power, and it's unpredictibality as to when it will explode.
Finding out that Lincoln was a railroad fan was interesting.
The idea that they had to do all this without bulldozers, cranes, etc. I found facinating. The ability to lay over a mile a day, 6 miles in one day, by hand is amazing.
It takes years here in Atlanta to get a single overpass completed.
The stories of the financial theivery are interesting, by the rail barons and congressmen.
 Woefully inadequate journalism May 25, 2004
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
I'm not in the habit of denigrating books that so many others have criticized before -- yet this one has some glaring faults that I haven't seen mentioned by other reviewers. Specifically:The subject of railroad construction history cries out for comprehensive, detailed, accurate maps, both current and historical, to illustrate the geography and cultural features of the landscape through which the railroad was built. The paltry few maps included are crudely drawn, with rarely marked elevations and no more than a dozen or so place names each, neglecting the hundreds of locations and terrain features critically important to this epic story. Although the major rivers are fairly carefully traced, we are left to wonder about the size and names of most of them. Many personal meetings (those involving Abraham Lincoln in particular) are described complete with casual chitchat, behavioral mannerisms, and even the thoughts of the participants -- as if these details could be known even to others living at the time, much less a historian writing more than a hundred years later. The technique of imagining and fabricating details of events, unless carefully acknowledged (as in Safire's brilliant "Freedom"), belongs in historical novels, not in a conscientious history. It casts doubt on the rest of the work, documented or not, because it shows the author has injected his own speculations and assumptions among the confirmable facts. Lastly, the journalistic mistakes in this book represent a veritable catalogue of errors any self-respecting writer must avoid. They include the duplication of information and chaotic meandering in time and place that many others have noted in detail. Poor choices of wording and vocabulary are legion, to the point that it is hard to believe the manuscript underwent any critical editing. Also distressing to the reader are multitudes of obvious typographical errors. If the estate of Mr. Ambrose would allow it, the publishers of this book could do their faithful readership, and the railroading enthusiasts of the world, a great service by issuing a second edition of this book with the organization improved, errors corrected, and better maps added. The result could be much more readable than Bain's massive tome on the same subject.
A Readable History of the Transcontinental Railroad March 9, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
In this effort, Mr. Ambrose takes up the subject of the transcontinental railroad. First, this story needs to be told. Secondly, it should be told in a fashion that is readable and easy to understand. Ambrose achieves both goals.Of note is the commentary about the marvel of engineering necessary to cross the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the quiet dignity of the Chinese immigrants who made it possible. I found the contrast between the work ethic of the Chinese, as compared to the boisterous revelry of the Irish, very interesting. Lastly, I believe that this history can add to our understanding about how government and private money can be used as a tool to encourage the best of American ingenuity. At the same time, it is also a good lesson in graft and political expediency. Ambrose can be read by children and adults. His obvious gift of storytelling is more than evident in this history. Pick it up cheap and find out.
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