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 enlarge | Author: Stephen E. Ambrose
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy Used: $0.01
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New (46) Used (198) Collectible (9) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  211 reviews
Sales Rank: 22065
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 Nothing Like...This? July 6, 2006
13 out of 28 found this review helpful
Anyone who has read Stephen Ambrose knows that precise historical accuracy is not the main focus of his writing. To the contrary, his aims seem to lie closer to promoting super-human efforts and painting people as heroes regardless of the body of evidence before him. This book is no different, with the subject matter not nearly as interesting as some of his other works such as Crazy Horse & Custer, or Undaunted Courage. In fact, Nothing Like It stands at the bottom of the list of Ambrose books that I have read, and possibly marks the end of the Ambrose literary experiment for me.
The issue isn't that he doesn't write interesting books. He sometimes does, though in this specific case it's highly questionable. The problem is that he doesn't engage in the accurate retelling of history. Now I'll be the first to admit that history is often times subjective. But there needs to be some sort of balance. Given the Union Pacific's duo of Durant and Dodge were highly corrupt and never paid their workers, it's hard to constantly laud these 2 men as heroes, as Ambrose often does. It would be more accurate if these men were painted as 2 of the first big time corporate crooks in America. The evidence is in the book, if you pay attention to it. To that end, I'll give Ambrose credit for at least divulging these facts, even if he does absurdly gloss over it by saying, "Boys will be boys."
Nothing Like It In the World tells of the fantastic struggle to bridge the country with an iron road, a feat that in itself is hard enough to conceive. Throw in the fact that this occurred in a time when slavery was ending and the country was divided by the Civil War, and the accomplishment becomes even more impressive. The feats of engineering and the sheer willpower of the Chinese and Irish workers (not to forget the Mormons) is mind boggling. Struggles against the weather of the high Sierras and a race against the competing railroad give us an interesting look at one of the most colossal feats in American engineering history.
But enough with the sensationalism. The men who financed and organized the road were crooks, much as today's Enron executives and Wall Street high rollers are. They were involved for fastidious financial gain, and little else save for having their names recorded in the annals of American history motivated them. In short, they yearned for money and power. Ironically, and perhaps fittingly, many of these men died of relatively ordinary financial means, and only Stanford's name is now recognized by the common man, and only because of the University, not because of the railroad.
The book is mildly entertaining, but too much of it is saturated with Ambrose's gung ho attitude that America is the Greatest Great thing that ever tried to be Greatly Great. Anyone with a tenth of a brain will tire of this early on in the narrative. It's just not good material, to pick up a history book and get hints of comic book hero-worship on the pages. The guy tried hard to be an historical institution unto himself, and a lot of times he missed the mark completely, this book included.
I don't know much about books that rival this work, but I would bet dollars to doughnuts there are dozens of books better suited to tell this story, and most of them will probably leave the "rah rah America" stuff out of it. I suggest looking for one of them.
Not his best, but a good read. May 6, 2006
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Perfect, I would say, for 15 pages before each bedtime. Raliway fans should be forewarned, this is not about locomotives and rolling stock, it's about the politics, financing, logistics and sociology of executing an epic industrial project. Not quite as compelling as Ambrose's WWII books, or his Lewis and Clark tome, but I think that reflects the limitations of this subject matter as entertainment. I disagree with other reviewers who feel that he "soft-pedaled" the subjects of greed and corruption -- I got the message: there was plenty of both. I would applaud Mr. Ambrose instead for remaining relatively objective and non-judgemental in examining historical realities, and for not - as many authors often do - spinning the material into a commentary on current events.
 Worth reading, but May 3, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is perhaps not completely up to the quality of Ambrose's Undaunted Courage or his better World War II books. It seems somewhat hastily written, just the way the transcontinental railroad was built. And he soft pedals a bit the corruption of the financing. Still he engagingly tells the amazing story of how the transcontinental railroad was virtually thrown together and mostly during the Civil War. Think about that. If you ever thought the North could have lost the Civil War, think again. The North had enough extra wealth and resources to build this engineering feat while the country was at war with itself.The story of getting across the Sierra Madre is a marvel of civil engineering, dynamite, and brute manual labor. As someone who works in the railroad industry, I can only wonder how long such a feat would take today or whether it would even be attempted.
EXCELLENT READ BUT LACKING A LITTLE DETAIL IN THE BEGINNING April 11, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
As with all the Ambrose books, this is a collaboration of a team of historians led by Ambrose. It is covers in exceptional detail the building of the railroad, explaining little details such as, "Why does the engines on the Union Pacific were so small and the engines on the Central Pacific were so big?" Simple: the Central Pacific burned wood while the Union Pacific burned coal. Ambrose also covers the intrigue behind the politics to win the grants to build the railroad. It is interesting how this sort of graft is involved in nearly every government-run venture. It was necessary though, as Ambrose points out --- only the government could risk money in such a fashion. What Ambrose missed, and this is surprising, is how the Civil War led directly to the building of the railroad. The South did not want it. They controlled the government until the war. A railroad benefited the East, not the South. After the war began, a log-jam of legistlation began to flow through Congress. Acts included: The Homestead Act, and the Land-Grant college act. Interesting how times are paralle. Still, despite that flaw, it is an excellent story about engineers and finance that is well-worth reading.
If this review was helpful, please add your vote -- Thanks.
 Not up to standards of basic scholarship January 6, 2006
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book is not up to the standards one would expect in a book written by a respected historian. It is obvious that the bulk of the book's research was done by the author's staff and not the writer. The editing is slipshod. The same "notecard" entries, for example, are used word for word in different chapters of the book. I suspect the Ambrose book was rushed to publication in order to appear before the publication of the vastly superior work on the same subject by David Bain, "The Empire Express."
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