Nothing Like It in the World

Additional Nothing Like It in the World Information

In this account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage, Stephen E. Ambrose offers a historical successor to his universally acclaimed Undaunted Courage, which recounted the explorations of the West by Lewis and Clark.

Nothing Like It in the World 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 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 Union had won the Civil War and slavery had been abolished, but Abraham Lincoln, who was an early and constant champion of railroads, would not live to see the great achievement. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes to life.

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. Locomo-tives, 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. This was the last great building project to be done mostly by hand: excavating dirt, cutting through ridges, filling gorges, blasting tunnels through mountains.

At its peak, the workforce -- primarily Chinese on the Central Pacific, Irish on the Union Pacific -- approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as fifteen thousand workers on each line. The Union Pacific was led by Thomas "Doc" Durant, Oakes Ames, and Oliver Ames, with Grenville Dodge -- America's greatest railroad builder -- as chief engineer. The Central Pacific was led by California's "Big Four": Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins. The surveyors, the men who picked the route, were latter-day Lewis and Clark types who led the way through the wilderness, living off buffalo, deer, elk, and antelope.

In building a railroad, there is only one decisive spot -- the end of the track. Nothing like this great work had been seen in the world when the last spike, a golden one, was driven in at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869, as the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific tracks were joined.

Ambrose writes with power and eloquence about the brave men -- the famous and the unheralded, ordinary men doing the extraordinary -- who accomplished the spectacular feat that made the continent into a nation.

What Customers Say About Nothing Like It in the World:

I have never recieved the product I purchased. I tried to contact the seller twice and have not recieved a response.

Again, Ambrose makes history seem like "you are there". Why. Because they were mostly coaches far more interested in coaching then teaching history. He catches all of the aspects of building the transcontinental railroad; political, ethnic, entrepreneurial, and political. We lost a great storyteller when we lost Dr Ambrose,Danny

I thought that I was buying a new book as a gift, but the book has a magic marker hash mark across the outside tops of the pages.The book itself is a wonderful and intriguing account. a very good read.

It is filled with enough info to get the message across about the difficult task and who and what was involved. It's usually because historians report the 'facts,' this happened then, and caused this or that, blah-blah snore. This book is a good starting point for some sense of understanding of what happened. Do we see, touch, feel, taste, or experience what has happened.

Yeah, I know it is supposed to be factual and it is but it left me wanting to know more about the people involved, their character or lack there of, and everything else that made them breathe. Sometimes. With NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD Stephen Ambrose gave us a look at a modern marvel, the building of the Transcontinental Road. History shouldn't be dry so why is that we readers are often left with a dusty after taste upon finishing off a tome or two. Maybe their purpose is to get us to WANT to learn more. The 'good old days' weren't all that good.

Where it fell short for me came in the telling. Ambrose was a fine historian and because of that the 'story' content was limited.

If that's the case, then Ambrose succeeded. We get a picture of what transpired according to someone else's observations, old notes or agreed upon truths but do the events come alive.

Who knows. It also provides a look at where the term 'Hell on Wheels' originated by offering a real life look at what kind of camp followers and people rolled along with and took advantage of the work crews.

For those who have watched the series 'Deadwood' and wondered about the copious amounts of swearing and less than sterling characters involved, the 'Hell on Wheels' that Ambrose described only echoes the production's tone. Maybe that's the value of historians.

Of course, it is also possible that I'm an idiot.

I really enjoyed this book. It is well written and if you are in interested in American History it gives you insight into the period of history surrounding the building of these two powerful railroads. It also gives you an inside look at the dealings and graft that went into the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. I would recommend this book and actually already have.