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Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation

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The Erie Canal was one of the most important and substantial engineering feats of the 19th Century. Bernstein provides extensive coverage of the personal and political events which lead up to the eight year dig. At page 199 he begins a well organized outline of the 300 mile excavation and the 100 plus locks required to deal with the elevation issues. The book had few maps and drawings, and the reader needs a separate atlas to grasp what is happening. Except for that lack, the work is highly recommended.
If you are expecting the equivalent of McCullough's "Path Between the Seas", you will be disappointed. That book deals extensively with the physical aspects of construction on the Panama Canal. Bernsteins book is mostly about the history of the period, the people, politics, and financing of the Erie Canal. The actual dig is treated lightly. It depends on your taste: people or shovels.

The Erie Canal was the first great 'infrastructure' project in American history. As the author, and many others, point out, it became the first low cost transportation avenue through the Appalachians, catalyzed an enormous amount of economic development, and became a symbol of what an intelligent, active government could do. The author attempts, with modest success, to set the history of the Erie Canal in the context of American and 19th century economic history. This book is largely based on secondary sources, including prior books on the Erie Canal specifically. Since there is nothing novel about the narrative, the success of the book rests largely on the author's ability to integrate prior information. Bernstein is only modestly successful. Much of the narrative is not really about the canal at all but about the political career of the canal's major exponent, the controversial DeWitt Clinton. Bernstein does an adequate job of describing the background events leading to the development of the canal and the political infighting accompanying the canal. The latter is not easy because of the complicated nature of party politics in New York state at this time. Anyone interested in a really good explication of this topic should look to the relevant sections of Sean Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy. Bernstein is at his best in the concluding sections of the book where he discusses the economic impact of the canal. In terms of the actual construction of the canal, his narrative is sketchy and unsatisfying. Bernstein, an experienced business journalist with an interest in economic history, is clearly out of his depth in this area. As pointed out by some of the prior Amazon reviewers, there are a number of factual errors in the book. For example, I don't think that the journalist Philip Freneau should be described as the first significant American poet. I think most would assign that honor to Phyllis Wheatley. In general, Bernstein's efforts to show the historic context of the Erie Canal are thin. The Erie Canal deserves a good modern treatment, but this is not it.

I was considering buying this book for a birthday present but fortunately happened to see a copy in my local library. It reads easily but has several gross historical and geographical errors which make me wonder about the accuracy of the facts in the rest of the book. The most egregious of these errors (page 66 and elsewhere) places the Cumberland gap near Cumberland, Maryland, when in fact it is at the Kentucky / Virginia border some 400 miles to the southwest. Also, I wonder about the cotton mill in Utica, New York in 1811 (p-150). How did the unspun cotton get from the south to a frontier town in upstate New York at that date ? I feel that there is simply no excuse for any non-fiction book on a historical subject to be marred by errors which could and should have been easily detected.

Overall this is a very enjoyable book to read. The author presents a telling picture of the economic history of the USA in its first 50 years of existence. He relates this history to his views of the political rivalries of the times and his tales of how geography and the doggedness of De Witt Clinton led New York State and NYC to become the economic center of our Nation. The focal point of the book is the building of the Erie Canal across upstate New York. The most revealing message in the book to me is how our early leaders, especially Washington, believed that for the Nation to survive and stand united it would have to build the transportation systems to be united economically. Perhaps the divisions that occurred in our Country leading to our Civil War could have been avoided if our then leaders would have taken pains to have united the North and South. This concept has much relevance today as we move into a more information based economy. I was not that entertained by the extensive political discussions, but if the early political history of our Nation is what the reader is searching for; you will find it in this book.

Unfortunately for me the book suffers from a number of apparent errors, some irritating and some amusing. I would not expect to have found this number of errors in a book given the glittering academic credentials of the parties the author mentions in his Acknowledgements. The author presents the history of the late 1700's in New York State as a ideal time where settlers and Indians lived in peace and the placement of a Canal across upper New York State was such a compelling project, that it is a wonder it did not occur sooner. For instance while discussing Nathan Roberts, one of the Canal's engineers, (p.280) the author state that he was a "native of Canastota, New York" born about 1776. Nonsense. If Roberts was in fact born in 1776 in or near present day Canastota, New York he would have likely been either scalped or be the son of a Tory. If it was the latter he would have been building his canal in Nova Scotia. In fact a quick check of the LDS database reveals Roberts was born in Piles Grove, NJ. Upstate New York during the Revolutionary War was the scene of many battles involving American troops and the British and their Indian Allies. Many of the armies were led by General John Sullivan and General James Clinton (De Witt's father.) Any discussion of the history of Central New York without mentioning the Sullivan- Clinton campaigns is in my opinion incomplete. After the war much of the lands were granted to Revolutionary war patriots. It was not until the end of the war and the initial settlements by early pioneers did the area become settled enough to accommodate the Canal being built.

Overall the author does a good job in describing the ingenuity of the engineers, craftsmen and laborers in the actual building of the canal. It always amazes me as to how rapidly our forefathers developed our country in the early 19th century. His descriptions of the improvised devices its builders used to build the canal are not that clear and he does make some statements that defy the basic rules of science. For example he states (p. 272) that an aqueduct over the Genesee River was built so strong that: "it could support two thousand tons of canal water as well as another two hundred tons or so of boats and cargo sailing across it." Since by definition a boat floats when it displaces its weight in water I don't think the weight load on the aqueduct would change if there were zero, one or five boats crossing it.

Fortunately the book is very well written so it was well worth the time for me to read it. I would very much recommend it to anyone interested in reading about the economic history of our nation. It presents a good framework for why our nation developed the way it did.

As other reviewers have pointed out, Bernstein gives short shrift to the technical aspects of the canal. However, this in no way detracts from the intent of the book which is to detail the particularly nasty politics involved in the construction of the canal as well as the economic ramifications. I am not an economist, nor particularly interested in economics, but this book is fascinating and generally well written. Bernstein's prose flows and most of his digressions are relevant. As a born, raised, and resident Westerner I had no idea of the importance of the Erie Canal to the development of the U.S.

I have two major quarrels with the book. First, my pet peeve about books of history and historical fiction (take note publishers, especially those of Patrick O'Brian): inadequate maps. There is one map in the book--it's in the front matter and not listed in the TOC. It doesn't include most of the pre- and post-canal place names described in the book. The Mohawk River, which features prominently in the story, isn't even shown! For those of us who have only changed planes in New York, this requires dragging around an atlas to read the book. It seems particularly inexcusable when the single map was generated relatively cheaply by GIS--you can see the pixelation of the DEM on the shaded relief of the map. Second, Bernstein uses "[sic]" a lot for nonstandard spelling, and inconsistently. Though historians and writers are divided on this stylistic point, at times it seems a bit churlish, especially when one considers that Webster's "Speller" wasn't published until 1783. It is annoying to read quotations by Washington, Jefferson, and their notable contemporaries with "[sic]" constantly appearing.

Regardless, a fine read on a subject I knew little about.

The Erie Canal was a major factor in shaping the economic development of this country. It would open up the west and allow the untapped resources of America to be utilized. This book covers the political history and development of the canal showing how it was built and what happened to those who fought for it. It is very well written but could have been made clearer at times. There are so many interesting people associated with the canal that it can be easy to get lost in the story. Nonetheless this is an important part of American history and something that should be told. Highly recommend for those who want to understand how America became the power it is today.

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

Good Account of this Important Project, January 24, 2005

The Erie Canal was one of the most important and substantial engineering feats of the 19th Century. Bernstein provides extensive coverage of the personal and political events which lead up to the eight year dig. At page 199 he begins a well organized outline of the 300 mile excavation and the 100 plus locks required to deal with the elevation issues. The book had few maps and drawings, and the reader needs a separate atlas to grasp what is happening. Except for that lack, the work is highly recommended.
If you are expecting the equivalent of McCullough's "Path Between the Seas", you will be disappointed. That book deals extensively with the physical aspects of construction on the Panama Canal. Bernsteins book is mostly about the history of the period, the people, politics, and financing of the Erie Canal. The actual dig is treated lightly. It depends on your taste: people or shovels.

I found this book to be very interesting and well written. Having spent the past 50 years living within a few miles of the Erie Canal (the modern version), I had a particular interest in the book. The tortuous struggle to get support for the canal was well known to me but I had no idea that a canal following the general route of the Erie Canal had been proposed before the turn of the 17th century. But, there is no map of Upstate New York showing the route of the canal and some of the alternative routes that were considered. This did not matter much to me, as a long-time resident of upstate NY since I knew exactly where the various landmarks mentioned by the author are located but it would be a real problem for a reader who is not a local resident. I recommend that anyone buying this book also buy or otherwise acquire a map of New York State.

The building of the Erie canal was the biggest building project the young United States had taken on at the time. It opened up what was, in that day, the wilderness.

It also stirred up a hornets nest of political and financial battles that made and ruined the careers of many men. And it's on these battles that Bernstein focuses most of his attention.

This is not a book in the same vein as McCullough's book about the Panama Canal or Ambrose's handling of the transcontinental railroad. Bernstein spends precious little time on the actual building of the canal, and even the map support is pretty weak-- just one big and not very detailed map of the canal path in the front of the book.

There's extensive background on canal building, a thorough explanation of the political background of the time, and a full and vivid depiction of some of the critical political figures (particularly De Witt Clinton, who emerges as the main character in this tale). The building of the canal is put in clear and cogent context; it just isn't shown very much.

If you want to know how the country and New York found a way to get the canal built, what it meant, what effects it had, why is was important in US history, this book does a superlative job. If you want to know what it was like to actually build it, you may be a bit frustrated by this work.

I really looked forward to reading this book. As I would drive along the New York Thruway, I always thought the Erie Canal was beautiful, and often dreamed of taking a boat trip along it. I am an engineer and a sailor, and looked forward to a detailed explanation of how the canal was built.

When I got to the end of the book, I was quite disappointed. Although it is a worthwhile read, to me this book is more of a political history of New York State from 1810 to 1830 than a book on the building of the Erie Canal. I now know a lot about De Witt Clinton, Martin Van Buren, and Tammany Hall politics, but I really don't know all that much about the building of the canal itself.

I also felt that the author explained the basic economic impact of the canal a few dozen too many times. By page 100, I had it memorized that cutting transportation costs by a factor of 10 would revolutionize how farm commodities and manufactured goods were bought and sold. By page 200, I had the feeling that I was reading a high school essay that was being stretched from 1 page to meet the 5 page requirement.

Overall, I am still glad I bought the book and invested the time to read it. I'm just still looking for a book that explains how the canal was built.