ISBN: 9780743203173

A politician from the neighboring state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, went to Concert Hall to make a speech. It attracted a big crowd because of Lincoln"s prominence after the previous ye… Mehr…

A politician from the neighboring state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, went to Concert Hall to make a speech. It attracted a big crowd because of Lincoln"s prominence after the previous year"s Lincoln-Douglas debates and the keen interest in the following year"s presidential election. The Nile on eBay   FREE SHIPPING UK WIDE   Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 by Stephen E. Ambrose From the author of &quot;D-Day&quot; and many other works of history, comes a detailed history of the men who built the transcontinental railroad that opened up the west of America. photos. FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description &quot;Nothing Like It in the World&quot; gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad &mdash; the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.The U.S. government pitted two companies &mdash; the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads &mdash; against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose&#039;s hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes vibrantly to life. Author Biography Stephen E. Ambrose is the author of numerous books on history and is founder of the Eisenhower Centre and the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans. Table of Contents Contents Introduction ONE Picking the Route 1830-1860 TWO Getting to California 1848-1859 THREE The Birth of the Central Pacific 1860-1862 FOUR The Birth of the Union Pacific 1862-1864 FIVE Judah and the Elephant 1862-1864 SIX Laying Out the Union Pacific Line 1864-1865 SEVEN The Central Pacific Attacks the Sierra Nevada 1865 EIGHT The Union Pacific Across Nebraska 1866 NINE The Central Pacific Assaults the Sierra 1866 TEN The Union Pacific to the Rocky Mountains 1867 ELEVEN The Central Pacific Penetrates the Summit 1867 TWELVE The Union Pacific Across Wyoming 1868 THIRTEEN Brigham Young and the MormonsMake the Grade 1868 FOURTEEN The Central Pacific Goes Through Nevada 1868 FIFTEEN The Railroads Race into Utah January 1-April 10, 1869 SIXTEEN To the Summit April 11-May 7, 1869 SEVENTEEN Done May 8-10, 1869 Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index Maps From Chicago to Omaha Nebraska Wyoming Nevada Utah California Review Climb aboard...this lively tale, a colorful, edifying story of U.S. history....Ambrose is the bard of American accomplishment.--Conn Nugent "New York Post" Richly readable...[Stephen Ambrose] bears the reader on shoulders of wonder and excitement.--Henry Kisor "The New York Times Book Review" Stephen Ambrose has done it again....Ambrose should be read as much for his muscular prose and talent to get at the heart of the matter as for his research.--Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today Historian "New York Post" This magnificent tale of high finance, low finagling, and workers hacking through 2,000 miles is magnificently told.--Time, naming Nothing Like It in the World as the #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year "The New York Times Book Review" Long Description Nothing Like It in the Worldgives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad -- the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.The U.S. government pitted two companies -- the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads -- against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes vibrantly to life. Review Quote Time,namingNothing Like It in the Worldas the #1 Nonfiction Book of the YearThis magnificent tale of high finance, low finagling, and workers hacking through 2,000 miles is magnificently told. Excerpt from Book Chapter One: Picking the Route 1830-1860 August 13, 1859, was a hot day in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The settlement was on the western boundary of the state, just across the Missouri River from the Nebraska village of Omaha. A politician from the neighboring state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, went to Concert Hall to make a speech. It attracted a big crowd because of Lincoln''s prominence after the previous year''s Lincoln-Douglas debates and the keen interest in the following year''s presidential election. Lincoln was a full-time politician and a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. The local editor called Lincoln''s speech -- never recorded -- one that "set forth the true principles of the Republican party." In the audience was Grenville Mellen Dodge, a twenty-eight-year-old railroad engineer. The next day he joined a group of citizens who had gathered on the big porch of the Pacific House, a hotel, to hear Lincoln answer questions. When Lincoln had finished and the crowd dispersed, W.H.M. Pusey, with whom the speaker was staying, recognized young Dodge. He pointed out Dodge to Lincoln and said that the young engineer knew more about railroads than any "two men in the country." That snapped Lincoln''s head around. He studied Dodge intently for a moment and then said, "Let''s go meet." He and Pusey strolled across the porch to a bench where Dodge was sitting. Pusey introduced them. Lincoln sat down beside Dodge, crossed his long legs, swung his foot for a moment, put his big hand on Dodge''s forearm, and went straight to the point: "Dodge, what''s the best route for a Pacific railroad to the West?" Dodge instantly replied, "From this town out the Platte Valley." Lincoln thought that over for a moment or two, then asked, "Why do you think so?" Dodge replied that the route of the forty-second parallel was the "most practical and economic" for building the railroad, which made Council Bluffs the "logical point of beginning." Why? Lincoln wanted to know. "Because of the railroads building from Chicago to this point," Dodge answered, and because of the uniform grade along the Platte Valley all the way to the Rocky Mountains. Lincoln went on with his questions, until he had gathered from Dodge all the information Dodge had reaped privately doing surveys for the Rock Island Railroad Company on the best route to the West. Or, as Dodge later put it, "He shelled my woods completely and got all the information I''d collected." The transcontinental railroad had been talked about, promoted, encouraged, desired for three decades. This was true even though the railroads in their first decades of existence were rickety, ran on poorly laid tracks that gave a bone-crushing bump-bump-bump to the cars as they chugged along, and could only be stopped by a series of brakemen, one on top of each car. They had to turn a wheel connected to a device that put pressure on the wheels to slow and finally to stop. The cars were too hot in the summer, much too cold in the winter (unless one was at the end nearest the stove, which meant one was too hot). The seats were wooden benches set at ninety-degree angles that pained the back, the buttocks, and the knees. There was no food until the train stopped at a station, when one had fifteen or fewer minutes to buy something from a vendor. The boiler in the engine was fired by wood, which led to sparks, which sometimes -- often -- flew back into a car and set the whole thing on fire. Bridges could catch fire and burn. Accidents were common; sometimes they killed or wounded virtually all passengers. The locomotives put forth so much smoke that the downwind side of the tracks on the cars was less desirable and it generally was on the poorer side of town, thus the phrase "the wrong side of the tracks." Nevertheless, people wanted a transcontinental railroad. This was because it was absolutely necessary to bind the country together. Further, it was possible, because train technology was improving daily. The locomotives were getting faster, safer, more powerful, as the cars became more comfortable. More than the steamboat, more than anything else, the railroads were the harbinger of the future, and the future was the Industrial Revolution. In 1889, Thomas Curtis Clarke opened his essay on "The Building of a Railway" with these words: "The world of to-day differs from that of Napoleon more than his world differed from that of Julius Caesar; and this change has chiefly been made by railways." That was true, and it had happened because of the American engineers, one of whom said, "Where a mule can go, I can make a locomotive go." The poetry of engineering, which required both imagination to conceive and skill to execute, was nowhere more in evidence than in America, where it was the most needed. In England and Europe, after George Stephenson launched the first locomotive in 1829, little of significance in design change, Simon & Schuster<

2001, ISBN: 9780743203173

[ED: Taschenbuch], [PU: TOUCHSTONE PR], From the author of "D-Day" and many other works of history, comes a detailed history of the men who built the transcontinental railroad that opened… Mehr…

[ED: Taschenbuch], [PU: TOUCHSTONE PR], From the author of "D-Day" and many other works of history, comes a detailed history of the men who built the transcontinental railroad that opened up the west of America. photos., DE, [SC: 0.00], Neuware, gewerbliches Angebot, 432, [GW: 490g], Revised, Banküberweisung, PayPal, Klarna-Sofortüberweisung, [CT: Sonstiges / Sonstiges]<