The Panama Canal: Its History, Its Political Aspects, and Financial Difficulties [Paperback]

J. C. Rodriguez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 12, 2002

Originally published in 1885, the December 1888 financial failure of the French efforts to build the Panama Canal of December 1888 was predicted in the author's articles for the New York World in 1883. In the preface the author says: "In studying the way in which that enterprise was launched I was led into a most mortifying disappointment, for the whole project of the great promoter seemed to me to have been undertaken without any serious studies, and indeed without the common precautions taken by any responsible contractor in works of much less magnitude."

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: University Press of the Pacific (December 12, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1410202909
• ISBN-13: 978-1410202901
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,617,281 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Building the Panama Canal, April 2, 2007

By 

C. P. Gordon Clark (Brecon, Wales, GB) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Panama Canal: Its History, Its Political Aspects, and Financial Difficulties (Paperback)

This is a useful reprint of an important contribution to the history of how the Panama Canal came to be built. Jose Carlos Rodrigues was an eminent Brazilian journalist, later editor of the Jornal do Commercio. He was asked by a New York paper to cover de Lesseps' attempt to build the Canal. Written some years later as articles for the London Financial News, this 1885 book exposed the financial flaws of the French attempt, and also doubted their engineering expertise. He made the point forcibly that even if the French succeeded the Americans would never accept the sole link between the Atlantic and Pacific being under European control, and could and should build a second canal. His arguments influenced President Hayes and later, after the French had abandoned their attempt, President Theodore Roosevelt, under whom the Canal was eventually completed.