Begun in 1817 and completed in 1825, the Erie Canal stretches 363 miles across upstate New York from Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River. A stunning achievement, the canal was hacked through a densely forested pass in the Appalachian Mountains using only axes, shovels, low-grade explosive power, beasts of burden, and some ingenious devices. The engineers and workers created locks, bypassed rapids and waterfalls, and adjusted to countless changes in elevation. When the canal was completed it became one of the wonders of the world. But the canal was much more than a spectacular construction project; it also served to bind a young United States to itself and the rest of the world in one bold stroke. In this thoroughly absorbing book, Peter Bernstein describes in vivid detail how the Erie Canal helped to shape the United States into a great nation by connecting the eastern seaboard and western expanses of America, as well as propel the Industrial Revolution and stimulate global trade, economics, and immigration. It was so important to the development of the U.S., argues Bernstein, that without the canal the detached western territories "would in all likelihood have broken away" and created another, if not several, separate countries. Manifest Destiny would have been denied.
In telling this gripping tale, the author offers a brief history of canals through the ages, explains the foresight exhibited by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson regarding the need for a waterway to the west, and outlines the political wars, financing challenges, and seemingly endless delays and false starts to the project. He also reveals much about the political landscape of early America through his profiles of the personalities and visionaries who devoted their lives to the project, along with the engineers and surveyors, most of whom had little experience designing or constructing a canal of any kind, much less such a massive undertaking. Wedding of the Waters succeeds brilliantly in bringing this rich story to life. --Shawn Carkonen
First proposed in 1808 and completed 17 years later, the Erie Canal was the first great feat of macroengineering undertaken by the infant American republic. As economic consultant Bernstein (Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk) shows in his eloquent account, the canal—stretching 363 miles from the Hudson River to Lake Erie—reshaped not only the economic landscape of the eastern seaboard but the political and social landscape as well. Bernstein vividly relates the political battles fought over the high-priced project and the work of surveyors, engineers and laborers. The canal was in particular an economic engine for New York, bringing down the cost of shipping goods between Buffalo and Manhattan by a whopping 90%. This in turn inspired the development of farms throughout the Great Lakes area and the Upper Midwest. At the same time, prices for farm commodities in Manhattan and other eastern cities dropped steadily, facilitating the growth of industrial workforces and a dramatic shift in the urban-to-rural ratio toward the cities. Bernstein does a first-rate job of examining the social, political and economic impact of the canal both as a construction project and as a viable path linking the Atlantic seaboard with the American interior. 20 b&w illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
In the early eighteen-hundreds, the wild idea began to circulate of a man-made waterway that would connect Lake Erie to the Hudson River. At the time, canals were an exciting technology. George Washington was fascinated by them, and spent his last years attempting to tame the Potomac. But geography favored New York, where the Mohawk River Valley offered a natural cut in the mountains. Bernstein's lively account covers the political debates that surrounded the canal's financing and choice of route, and also the tenacity of the local workers who completed the project. The inauguration, in 1825, of the Erie Canal sparked a cultural revolution as interior cities became port towns. The number of patents increased, suggesting an intellectual awakening, but there were also fears that mobility could lead to moral decline, and one paper denounced the canal as "the Big Ditch of Iniquity."
Copyright © 2005
The New Yorker
Critics applauded Bernsteins work for its wide scope, thorough approach, and readability. His economic insight is exemplary (the author is an economic consultant and writer), and the books narrative vitality is appealing. However, as absorbing and vibrant as many critics found the book, it had its share of detractors. Reviewers commonly cited the lack of sufficient illustrations and maps to help readers "visualize the physical challenges of building the canal, as well as explain how it actually worked" (
Chicago Tribune). One even called the multitude of statistics Bernstein cites "staggering." Bottom line: This is a complex story with global implications and not enough pretty pictures, but "Bernstein does it full justice" (
Washington Post).
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
The Era of Good Feelings refers in part to the economic expansion uncorked by the Erie Canal in 1825, whose history the author relays with narrative vitality and economic insight. Bernstein regularly brightens the dismal science, as proven by his superpopular Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (1996). His surefooted formula depicts well-drawn characters--in this work, De Witt Clinton, the governor of New York and indispensable man behind the Erie Canal--extracting visions of future prosperity from the immediate constraints of economic and political interests. Pessimists about an Erie Canal could disparage "Clinton's Ditch" with examples of failed canals (one sponsored by George Washington), but when the War of 1812 subsided, Clinton's political supporters succeeded in floating bonds and turning dirt. The pork-barrel extravaganza of its day, this inside-politics element to the Erie Canal's history perks up intervening passages about the canal's physical construction before Bernstein concludes with the revolutionary economic consequences of the canal. An excellent account of one of the first, and most consequential, public works of American history. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Read it, and prepare to join the Bernstein groupies! -- Peter Passell, editor, Milken Institute Review
About the Author
Peter L. Bernstein's nine books include the worldwide bestseller Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. Bernstein is also an economic consultant and publisher of Economics and Portfolio Strategy, a semimonthly letter for institutional investors. He lives in New York City.
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