the path between the seas by david mccullough

However I think reading the book (non-audio) in full, with time to absorb the text, would be rewarding given the depth of detail, but for the casual introduction this audio abridgement gets the main story and is not a disappointment as many abridgements can be.The actual digging of the canal is the last third of the book, which is the most interesting due to the triumph of engineering.

The abridgement is mostly seamless and at 8hrs as as long as many other full-length books. Even the shortened version seemed to drag in places so I'm content to have a lot of extraneous detail of the longer version set aside for another time. I read this after recently hearing that Nicaragua is planning to build a new canal, with Chinese engineers, and wanted some historical context, why did the original canal end up in Panama? Given the option I went with the 8hr abridged version - the unabridged version is 35 hours. 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.

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.įrom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal.

The path between the seas by david mccullough