Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869 [Hardcover]

Stephen E. Ambrose (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2000

The Union had won the Civil War; slavery was abolished. Lincoln, an early champion of railroads, would not live to see the next great achievment. It took brains, muscle, and sweat in quantities and scope never before ventured and required engineers and surveyors willing to lose their lives in the wilderness; men who had commanded and obeyed in war; workers from China, Ireland, and the defeated South; and capitalists betting their money for possible profit. The government pitted the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the east through Panama, around South America, or lugged across the country. The railroad was the last great building project to be done by hand: excavating dirt, cutting through ridges, filling gorges, blasting tunnels. Nothing like this great railroad had been seen in the world when the last spike, a golden one, was driven in at Promontory Peak, Utah, in 1869, as the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific joined tracks. Ambrose writes with power and eloquence about the brave men who accomplished the spectacular feat that made the nation one.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Abraham Lincoln, who had worked as a riverboat pilot before turning to politics, knew a thing or two about the problems of transporting goods and people from place to place. He was also convinced that the United States would flourish only if its far-flung regions were linked, replacing sectional loyalties with an overarching sense of national destiny.

Building a transcontinental railroad, writes the prolific historian Stephen Ambrose, was second only to the abolition of slavery on Lincoln's presidential agenda. Through an ambitious program of land grants and low-interest government loans, he encouraged entrepreneurs such as California's "Big Four"--Charles Crocker, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Leland Stanford--to take on the task of stringing steel rails from ocean to ocean. The real work of doing so, of course, was on the shoulders of immigrant men and women, mostly Chinese and Irish. These often-overlooked actors and what a contemporary called their "dreadful vitality" figure prominently in Ambrose's narrative, alongside the great financiers and surveyors who populate the standard textbooks.

In the end, Ambrose writes, Lincoln's dream transformed the nation, marking "the first great triumph over time and space" and inaugurating what has come to be known as the American Century. David Haward Bain's Empire Express, which covers the same ground, is more substantial, but Ambrose provides an eminently readable study of a complex episode in American history. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Eminent historian Ambrose notes that he once viewed the investors and businessmen who built the transcontinental railroad as robber barons who bilked the government and the public. But in his rough-and-tumble, triumphant sagaAsure to appeal to the many readers of Ambrose's bestseller Undaunted CourageAhe presents the continent-straddling railroad, yoking east and west at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, as a great democratic experiment, a triumph of capitalist organization, free labor, brains and determination that ushered in the American Century, galvanized trade and settlement, and made possible a national culture. To critics who charge that the railroad magnates were corrupt and grew obscenely rich and powerful through land grants and government bonds, Ambrose replies that the land grants never brought in enough money to pay the bills and, further, that the bonds were loans, fully paid back with huge interest payments. But this argument fails to convince, partly because Ambrose does a superlative job of re-creating the grim conditions in which the tracks were laid. The Central Pacific's workers were primarily Chinese, earning a dollar a day. Union Pacific workers were mostly Irish-American, young, unmarried ex-soldiers from both the Union and the Confederacy. Accidental deaths were commonplace, and the two companies, notwithstanding strikes, slowdowns and drunken vice, engaged in a frantic race, mandated by Congress, as the winner got the greater share of land and bonds. As a result of the haste, an enormous amount of shoddy construction had to be replaced. Native Americans, who wanted the iron rail out of their country, hopelessly waged guerrilla warfare against railroad builders who talked openly of exterminating them. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, letters, telegrams, newspaper accounts and other primary sources, Ambrose celebrates the railroad's unsung heroesAthe men who actually did the backbreaking work. 32 pages of b&w photos. 6-city author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 29, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684846098
• ISBN-13: 978-0684846095
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.3 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (250 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #487,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Stephen Ambrose was a renowned historian and acclaimed author of more than 30 books. Among his New York Times best-sellers are: Nothing Like It in the World, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, D-Day - June 6, 1944, and Undaunted Courage.He was not only a great author, but also a captivating speaker, with the unique ability to provide insight into the future by employing his profound knowledge of the past. His stories demonstrate how leaders use trust, friendship and shared experiences to work together and thrive during conflict and change. His philosophy about keeping an audience engaged is put best in his own words: "As I sit at my computer, or stand at the podium, I think of myself as sitting around the campfire after a day on the trail, telling stories that I hope will have the members of the audience, or the readers, leaning forward just a bit, wanting to know what happens next." Dr. Ambrose was a retired Boyd Professor of History at the University of New Orleans. He was the Director Emeritus of the Eisenhower Center in New Orleans, and the founder of the National D-Day Museum. He was also a contributing editor for the Quarterly Journal of Military History, a member of the board of directors for American Rivers, and a member of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council Board. His talents have not gone unnoticed by the film industry. Dr. Ambrose was the historical consultant for Steven Spielberg's movie Saving Private Ryan. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks purchased the film rights to his books Citizen Soldiers and Band of Brothers to make the 13-hour HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. He has also participated in numerous national television programs, including ones for the History Channel and National Geographic.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

#37 in Books > History

#46 in Kindle eBooks > History

#37 in Books > History

#46 in Kindle eBooks > History

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

113 of 119 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars There was nothing like it! December 22, 2000

By Wendell Huffman

Format:Hardcover

At one point in the book Ambrose tells us that railroad historians are prone to exaggerate. I may be a railroad historian (he cites me in a footnote), but it is no exaggeration to say that this may well be the worst book ever written about the first American transcontinental railroad. True, Ambrose does tell the great story of a monumental event. And he even gets some of it right: two rival companies starting from either end and meeting in the middle. But the errors that fill these pages destroy any value the book may possess.

Ambrose admitted in the introduction that he knew nothing about the subject. Is it any surprise then that he uncritically accepted and repeats fables about the construction of this railroad? But Ambrose can take credit for many original mistakes. He moves the California gold discovery site to the west of Sacramento, has the Humboldt River rise in northeast Utah, and stretches the Forty-Mile Desert to 100 miles. Theodore Judah is mistakenly credited with building the suspension bridge at Niagara Falls. Central Pacific construction supervisor J.H.Strobridge is presented making decisions for the rival Union Pacific.

Some mistakes--like the eight-foot long bunk cars for the workers, or the stories repeated in different chapters--might be the result of poor editing and proof reading. But other statements make one wonder if even the author read this book before sending it to the printer. Perhaps the most ludicrous image in the book is Ambrose's description of Central Pacific workers drilling holes in the granite for blasting. He tells us men standing on step ladders pounded away with sledge hammers on a long drill held steady by three men--one holding it as high as he could reach, another in the middle, and the third down by his toes. All this to produce a hole one and a half feet deep! If this really happened (and I seriously doubt it), anyone smart enough to bore a tunnel would figure out that one could cut the drill into thirds and drill three holes with the same number of men in the same time (and have fewer injuries from men falling off ladders).

But the book's greatest affront is its cavalier disregard of scholarship. Ambrose invents a brother for Mark Hopkins to take Charles Crocker's place as CP director. Statements from good primary sources are misquoted or presented out of context. One quote from a Mark Hopkins letter is so seriously rewritten as to be meaningless. And these are passed off as authentic quotations, apparently to make the work appear well researched. A line from a photo caption in a secondary source of little historic value is actually presented as the very words of Charles Crocker himself.

Ambrose should be embarassed by this book. Especially so in light of his recent essay in an October 2000 issue of Forbes ASAP in which he implies that he can be trusted as a seeker and teller of the truth of our past. This book is not well crafted. It is not well researched. Saddly, children will read this; teachers will teach this. "Saddly", because this book tells a story that is like nothing that ever happened in the real world.

Perhaps someday we will learn that a rough first draft was sent to the printers by mistake and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

125 of 133 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Will the real Stephen Ambrose please stand up! October 25, 2000

By "waful"

Format:Hardcover

The subject is grand and the author is respected and prominent, so why has this book failed in its stated purpose? It reminds me most of the college student realizing at the last moment that his semester paper is due the next day and then scrambling to throw material together without regard to scholarship. I can only ask, "who really wrote this book?" and I speculate that it was written by Professor Ambrose's students in History 101. Either that or the author has resorted to churning out material just to capitalize on his popularity.

Ambrose's cheerleading of the accomplishments of the common American man - he does it in his WWII books and others - makes him seem a little like the Tom Clancy of the history field. Clancy succeeds because of his terrific imagination and captivating style. Ambrose succeeds when he backs it up with good writing but in this book the poor scholarship and terrible editing is a real downer!

How can any modern historian state, "The Chinese . . . needed little or no instruction in handling black powder, which was a Chinese invention . . ." (p.156). Really now! Perhaps all Chinese are good at flower arranging as well.

How can an historian of Ambrose's stature totally invert a well known event of the Civil War as he does on p.292 with the statement that "George B. McClellan's uncoded orders were captured by the Confederates before the Battle of Antietam, giving Robert E. Lee a chance to read them." For those who are unfamiliar with this incident, it was Lee's orders that were discovered by Union troops near Frederick, MD, providing the bumbling McClellan with the information he needed to head off the attempt to invade Pennsylvania.

Ambrose needs a new editor if this is what his current handler does. He tells us time and time again of the process of moving rails into place as the teams of Irish, Chinese, or Mormons try to beat some production goal. Other material is tediously repeated as though he was trying to meet his own mileage goal, further suggesting the college student padding his term paper to meet the professor's required number of pages. And little facts change from page to page - at one point the CP is 590 miles from Sacramento on April 9, while a page later the end of the CP tracks are 578 miles from Sacramento on April 27 - did they really regress during those 18 days?

Maps! Wow, would they be helpful if they were positioned relevant to the material around them. The CP work in California is discussed early in the book, so why is the map of their route placed at page 342 where the discussion is about the CP and UP competition in Utah? And even if you locate the map you want, they frequently do not show the locations that Ambrose has identified as important milestones in the progress of the transcontinental project - the lack of detail is appalling.

Professor Ambrose should have stuck with his first instincts as expressed in the acknowledgements. When his editor suggested the subject matter to him, "I hesitated. . . I wanted nothing to do with those railroad thieves." My response is only to note that when I see the Ambrose name on books in the future, I also will hesitate.

79 of 83 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Inferior to Bain's recent book on the same subject September 23, 2000

By David A. Kemp

Format:Hardcover

I've read, enjoyed, and valued other histories by Ambrose, but this is not one of his best efforts. If you are seriously interested in the building of the first transcontinental railroad, get and read David Haward Bain's monumental Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad (Viking, 1999, 797 pages), the result of fourteen years of research and the definitive modern treatment of this subject. Ambrose's book has the misfortune to follow on the heels of Bain's, and it cannot seriously compete with it. Bain's book is truly comprehensive and thorough, a labor of love; in comparison Ambrose's seems somewhat perfunctory and superficial, just another installment in the assembly line of books Ambrose has been cranking out in recent years. If you will compare the two books you will see what I mean.