Customer Reviews

Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal

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Arguably building the Suez Canal presented political challenges and problems as great as the engineering problems. The author, Zachary Karabell, does an excellent job outlining the political challenges encountered in planning and constructing the canal noting "The states of Europe competed over it; the Ottoman Empire tried to prevent its construction; and later, the armies of the modern Middle East destroyed the cities along its banks." The text observes, "The canal was not just a monumental act of engineering and organization. It was the culmination of ideals and ambitions, and a symbol of all that the culture of the 19th century held dear. It was a hundred-mile-long trench that signaled the triumph of science, the creativity of mankind, and the beginning of a wonderful future."

Incredibly, in 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte when occupying Alexandria, Egypt investigated digging a canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The author narrates the many political differences over a proposed canal especially the opposition of Britain. In 1854, Ferdinand de Lesseps (out of a government job) adopted and promoted the dream of building the Suez Canal but he was strongly opposed by a group of French socialist technocrats and the British government. The book notes "Most of Egypt was desert and had been ruled for centuries by Turkish lords." In November 1854, the viceroy of Egypt, Said Pasha, who "...was intoxicated by the promise of an Egypt restored to prominence and no longer under the control of the Ottoman Empire..." in 1854 gave a written concession to Lesseps to build a canal updating the concession in 1856. Lesseps wanted to follow a direct route, but canal opponents used the route argument to delay or defeat the project.

The Suez Canal Company was to be a publicly held stock company. When the stock subscription was under subscribed in November 1858, Said Pasha had Egypt cover the shortfall. As of January 1859, a company existed and work began under an unrealistic schedule. Political problems and maneuvering continued until French Emperor Napoleon III ruled in favor of Lesseps on the latest challenges.

The Suez Canal was being built during a time of technological change when steam power was replacing muscle power. With a completion date of November 1869, at the end of 1867 less than half of the canal's excavation was finished. The solution was to mechanize with nearly three hundred special steam powered machines being build for canal work. When the last construction dike was broken on August 15, 1869, the seas flowed quietly and peacefully together putting to rest the age-old fears that something terrible would happen when the waters from the Mediterranean and Red Sea mingled. On November 16 about sixty ships left Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea, and the next day at Ismailia a festive carnival began as the first transit of the Suez Canal was completed. Ironically in 1875, Britain (the canal's greatest critic) purchased 44 percent of the Suez Canal Company's stock becoming the largest single stockholder; and by the beginning of the twentieth century, the Suez Canal had become the fulcrum of the British Empire.

The canals' dream that animated the rulers of Egypt and France, as well as the engineers and the shareholders, that the East and West would be joined, and the union of the two seas and the two worlds would allow the energies of mankind to flourish was never realized. In 1956 Egypt, under Colonel Gamal Nasser,nationalized the canal and during the ensuing 1956 war the canal was blocked with sunken ships. Today the canal still functions but pipelines have taken away a large portion of the canal's business. The Suez Canal remains "a testament to nineteenth-century will and ingenuity. But its legacy for Egypt is a different and sadder story."

The book ends stating "Visionaries created the canal, but others actually built it.... The Suez Canal was the greatest feat of organization and engineering of its day, and it served,for a brief moment, as a symbol of all that was right in the world.... As a vision, it was beautiful and inspiring; as a reality, it has sometimes been a blessing, and usually not. In its prime, it offered, at best, power and wealth.

This is a very readable account and provides useful background on 21st century politics in the Middle East. A better map of the canal route would be helpful. My main criticism is that greater coverage of the engineering challenges/resolutions was not given as it was also an engineering marvel in its day.

This is a very well-written book on the history of the Suez Canal, from the inception of the idea for its digging until today. There's not a lot of description of the actual work that was involved; we are primarily given the political and diplomatic machinations that were involved in the beginning of the work, and continuing until it opened, and beyond. There are thumbnail sketches of the major players, and they were quite interesting. There are also occasional mistakes of fact in the book, which should have been caught by a good editor. The first time Napoleon III is introduced, he's called Napoleon's son, but later in the book he is correctly identified as his nephew. Also, the date for the conquest of Constantinople is given as two different years in two different places. They didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book, but they were distracting nevertheless. Not knowing a lot about the history involved in the Suez Canal, I enjoyed this book very much.

Parting the Desert tells the story of one of the most important engineering feats of the 19th century. I knew about the canal mostly because of the 1956 crisis, but this book takes you back to its orginis. Parting the Desert is a wonderful read, and it highlights what people can achieve when they come up with a dream and dedicate their lives to it. Who knew that the idea for the modern canal began with Napoloen Bonaparte, or that the Statue of Liberty was orginally designed for the entrance of the Suez Canal? One man, Ferdinand de Lesseps, was the driver of the work, but he was aided by many others, such as the emperor and empress of France, the rulers of Egypt, and talented engineers. But what makes the book so much richer is that it also had a tinge of sadness. Karabell celebrates the people who made the canal, but he also puts the accomplishment in context and shows how the subsequent history of the canal in the 20th century didn't really live up to the dreams and ambitions of its creators. A marvelous book that makes you think about the world today, especially the Middle East, and how it came to be.

PARTING THE DESERT is a quick read that will fill-in the interested on the Suez Canal. However it reads more like an ode to Ferdinand de Lesseps and could have been his biography.

Frankly, I believe the story would have been better told if there had been a larger discussion of the technology and management developed rather than the battle of egos that delayed the project.

A better story of accomplishment is A THREAD ACROSS THE OCEAN by John Steele Gordon about the first transatlantic cable. Incidently, both projects were occuring at the same time.

A good filler for those interested in the politics of the French 2nd Empire, but, does not add much to those looking for the history of technology and innovation.

This is the story of the building of the Suez Canal. The idea of a canal first gained currency with the invasion of Egypt in 1798 by Napoleon. Several odd mystical intellectuals promoted the canal but the leader came to be diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, a practical, ambitious fellow who conceived the canal as a monument to himself. The canal was finished in 1869 and royalty from all over Europe flocked to Egypt for its inauguration.

Most of the book concerns Lesseps and his diplomatic and commercial machinations to get both political approval for the canal and the money to build it. The most interesting of the politicians in the book are the Egyptian leaders, Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Said, and Ismail, whose effort to westernize while staving off the West were ultimately futile. One wonders how history might have been different if these three Egyptian leaders and Egypt might have been treated with more consideration by the Western powers. Lesseps, much as one might admire his steadfastness, is not a very likeable person, nor are any of the other Westerners in the book.

Karabell is an excellent writer and the book never lags in attention. As one person's opinion, however, I would have appreciated a little less focus on wacko intellectuals and high-society hijinks and more on the challenges faced by the engineers and the construction workers on the ground. There is only one unreadable map -- when will publishers learn that good maps are essential to a book? -- and not enough detail about the extraordinary engineering challenges faced by the builders.

Smallchief

Parting the Desert is a most informative book for those who know nothing of the Suez Canal. Zachary Karabell, the author, explains how the construction of this important waterway was accomplished. I quickly learned that the difficulties in creating the canal were more political than technological.

Ferdinand De Lesseps is the major hero in this story. This citizen of France was a diplomat before he became interested in building the Suez Canal. Indeed, the talents of a good diplomat were what was required to deal with all the nations who opposed, impeded, or were skeptical about the canal. De Lesseps played a delicate balancing act that allowed him to outmaneuver Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and at least one reluctant Egyptian head of state. At the same time, he rounded up the money to finance such a huge undertaking and kept banks and investors at bay while the project was completed. Unfortunately, after achieving this success, De Lesseps failed miserably attempting a similar canal in Panama. This failure was so great he only escaped being jailed for fraud because of age and ill health.

The canal was a wonderful benefit for the western nations. Unfortunately, Egypt was not so lucky. The tragedy of the canal is how little benefit was bestowed upon Egypt and the Egyptian people by its construction and use. Bad financial decisions by Egyptian officials resulted in the country being forced to sell its shares of stock in the canal company, as well as its right to receive profits from ship transit. The country was essentially rendered totally subservient to European powers for decades. The canal only really became Egyptian after 1956.

The Suez canal is no longer as important as it once was. Much oil now travels by pipeline instead of tanker ships. Some super tankers are too large to travel through the canal and sail around the horn of Africa instead. None of this diminishes the achievement involved in building the canal, or its importance in the past.

Its a most interesting story and one all world historians will enjoy.

This story of the construction of the Suez Canal tells us the dilemmas of globalization are nothing new. A very brisk telling of that monumental task and the historical background behind it. Like a magnet energizing filings the history of the Canal animates multiple strains of nineteenth century history in concert, from Napoleon in Egypt, to nineteenth century industrialization, the rise of imperialism, the modernization of Egypt, or the era of Napoleon 3. The protagonists are de Lessep, whose determination to get the job done is heroic, and Mohammed and Said Pasha, attempting defensive modernization of Egypt, finally Ismail Pasha, whose misteps lead to the debacle of the British taking over Egypt.
This tale is topical, for the Eurocentric exhortations to modernization tend to forget how an almost stronger willingness in the nineteenth century got burned in the attempt by the Mephistopheles of global finance. Very vivid history, and essential background for the current cultural politics of westernization.

I liked this book, because I didn't know anything about this project and wanted to know more about politics and technology in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, I got only the former.

Author Karabell spends most of the book on the history of Egypt in the 19th century focusing on political relationships between France, Turkey, Ferdinand De Lesseps (FDL), and Egypt. FDL, France's emperor Napoleon, and the three leaders of Egypt in the mid 1850s are the major characters. Their interplay and fate is Karabell's story.

FDL was driven to be someone in his time, and the Suez Canal made him someone in the late 1800s. It was his political skill, connections, and drive to avoid failure which brought the project to fruition. What I hadn't known, and was well covered by Karabell was the fate of the canal -- considering what country opposed it from the beginning to the end (read the book to know more).

What I didn't get from this book was any detailed sense of the technical details of the creation of the canal. This was a main interest because I am an engineer. I doubt Karabell spent 1,000 words in 200+ pages on technical details. The other thing I didn't get from this book was a useful map to follow what was done where. Yes, there is an apparently complete overall map. But it's printed in a non-contrasty way which makes it hard to read anything. I used Google Maps to find places which were mentioned in the book about which I was reading.

In summary, this is a useful book -- worth reading for the political context. But it's nearly silent about technology and hard to follow without a good map. Minus 1 star for each defect.

I was expecting a book on the construction of the Suez canal but there is scant information about the engineering accomplishment. However, the book does provide a very well written and interesting overview of regional polictics for the time and how De Lessups single-handedly "engineered" the Suez canal.

Karabell has written the definitive work on how the Suez Canal was built. The political, diplomatic, and jingoist intrigues stretching across several deserts and continents is more interesting than how it was designed, constructed, engineered, and financed, although he tells us about those players also.

Our hero is a French diplomat, thought washed-up due to earlier failures, but given a second chance due to his family and political connections. Perhaps more than any other person in modern history, he was truly the right man in the right place to achieve something that all thought impossible. He invented the modern public stock corporation for financing and then convinced French pensioners to buy shares and French railroad engineers to learn canal-digging. He invented shuttle diplomacy in the days before private jets and Henry Kissinger, and travelled non-stop between Egypt, Turkey, London, and Paris. Recognizing the power of public relations and corporate communications, he started a company newspaper and built the largest displays at the Paris expos where he often gave the tours personally. He cleverly led people to believe that the canal had a lot more influential supporters than it ever did. No one except deLesseps really wanted the canal built but more importantly no one tried hard to stop him. His opponents in Britain seemed more concerned with Monty Python-esque displays of British bravado, and getting the French in a conflict with the Turks and Germans (that would come later).

In the end the canal got built, way over budget (secondary rounds of investment were required) and behind schedule. But on that day the royalty and celebrity of the 19th century world assembled and took a short boat ride, that showed all what French engineering, innovation, and nationalism could achieve if the British and Turks could not reach agreement on how to stop it.

Ultimately the Egyptian backers of the canal were forced into exile, bankruptcy, and foreign subordination. No amount of public relations could make this canal profitable with the exorbitant cost and limited trading volumes of that day. Later requirements to move huge quantities of Arab Gulf oil put the Suez Canal back in the black until scuttled by war and pipelines. DeLesseps went on to failure, trying to build another canal, this time in Panama where the engineering really mattered since the two seas were at very different levels.