Customer Reviews

Bond of Union: Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Erie Canal has been fabled in story and song, remember that ditty from grade school about the "low bridge, everybody down/low bridge for we're coming to a town." It proved to be one of the earliest and most effective public works projects in the early American republic. It linked New York City to the upper Midwest, and it secured economic supremacy for the city known to all of us now as the "Big Apple." Indeed, before the opening of the Erie Canal, Philadelphia was the dominant city in the United States. In no small manner, the canal changed the nature of the American nation.

"Bond of Union" is a very fine account of the building of the canal, as well as its meaning in American history. The author, a well-known journalist in New York who has written about water and its supply to the city, has a fine sense of drama and emphasizes the unique cast of characters in this story to advantage. This includes the ever intriguing Thomas Jefferson, New York governor DeWitt Clinton, surveyor John Randel, and Benjamin Wright, the "Father of American Civil Engineering." Politicians come into play, jockeying to ensure that the canal went through their constituents' towns and terminated where they stood the most to gain. A major fight took place over the western terminus, for example, and Black Rock was an early possibility. Have you never heard of Black Rock? If not, that's not surprising because the town eventually chosen, Buffalo, went on to grow into one of the largest cities in the nation while Black Rock was passed by.

Gerard Koeppel's account of the Erie Canal is first of all a very fine narrative, enjoyable and quite useful. It is not, a rigorous scholarly work that seeks to do anything more than tell a very entertaining and enlightening story. As a story it is superb. As an analytical work of history it has less value.

This is the definitive story of the building of the Erie Canal, with prodigious research but still quite readable. We who like the nitty gritty will discover in the first few pages that this is the McCoy. He has done a lot of work on this thing, built a monument, and deserves congratulations.

Koeppel has a "warts and all" approach, which is a bit too heavy on the warts. He doesn't like most of the characters, e.g., chief engineer Benjamin Wright and Governor DeWitt Clinton. He also doesn't like Masons, Mormons, anyone who goes to church, and anyone who made money on the project. (How he thinks it could have been done without anyone making money, he does not say). Those 21st century prejudices are a flaw, however, when imposed on 19th century people, and serve no useful purpose except to inform the reader that the author is politically correct.

I think his characterization of Wright as an amateur civil engineer and homespun provincial is a mistake. He tells us twice, for instance, that Wright's sobriquet as "father of American civil engineering" was not awarded until 1969, to suggest his contemporaries would not have voted him the same honor. Most of his best contemporaries had been his pupils, and called Wright in for advice on later jobs, as Koeppel himself carefully records in this book...

In addition, the author doesn't mention Wright was a Mayflower descendant of inherited wealth, well educated at Litchfield, whose father and grandfather were Yale graduates, and whose father had been an officer in the continental army, promoted after the disastrous retreat from Long Island. Since such trivia about lesser figures was included in the book, my guess is that Koeppel was not aware of this background.

There is a pearl of a quote from Jefferson's letter of congratulations to DeWitt Clinton in this book, which shows that the sage of Monticello, late in life, did indeed recognize the dynamic power of free market capitalism. That piece alone should make Koeppel's work a valuable reference.

Bond of Union: Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire

As a life-long resident of Upstate New York I found this book very interesting. The Erie Canal is presented in school so simplistically that we simply assume everyone was on board to dig it and it was not challenge technically or politically. This book clearly traces the history of the politics and describes the many engineering feats that were accomplished by largely unschooled American surveyors and engineers. It also makes very clear that politics are no worse now then they were in colonial times. Can you imagine the fact that New York City legislators never once voted for support of the canal during any stage of its proposal or construction! I highly recommend reading this book.

ths review is by charlie gilman spouse of marilee gilman. Exhaustivly researched, bond of union is well written and thoughtfully presented. At first i thought it would be hard to keep my interest but I found the book to be riveting and when I was finished I felt my knowledge of our countrys history to be greatly amplified. I reccoment this book highly. charlie gilman

I picked this book up on a whim, because the topic intrigued me. Not a serious reader of history, I personally found the level of detail in the book regarding the political and financial dealings required to bring the canal into reality a bit overwhelming. The book is close to 400 pages long, and the first shovel doesn't break ground on the canal until 200 pages into the book. That's a lot of pages devoted to wrangling in Albany, wrangling in DC, failed bond issues, and political machinations big and small. And to me, the politics of the canal are the least interesting part of the story. I wanted to hear more about the actual work on the canal and the engineering behind it. The author certainly covers these topics, but not with the vigor he devotes to the political fights that made the canal possible. So, if you are looking for a thorough history of the politics and economics behind the construction of the Erie Canal, this is certainly the book for you, but if you are more interested in engineering, laborers, and day to day life on the canal itself, you might want to look elsewhere.

Everyone enrolled in school in New York State studies the Erie Canal for a portion of I think the fourth grade. I did. And ever since that time I have been facinated by the canal, and its inpact on the state.

This is the best book so far on this great subject. I think I have read them all.

I was just the right balance of pre construction and construction. I would have preferred a little more post construction talk. The author spends the right amount of time on details.

Pick up this book for a great read

I liked this book very much and thought Koeppel did a great job of breathing life into the political intriques surrounding the creation of America's first grand public works project. I knew little about the history of the canal prior to reading this book, and in addition to getting the big picture, I came away knowing neat facts about inclined plane canals, hydraulic cement, and how a lock system works.

Building America's infrastructure is important to President Obama's stimulus plan and this history of the Erie Canal demonstrates the widespread political, social, and economic benefits of that kind of policy from the early 1800's through today.