Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad - Hardcover

Bain, David Haward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067080889X ISBN 13: 9780670808892

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1999

Synopsis

A dramatic history of the construction of America's first transcontinental railroad chronicles three seminal decades in American history, describing the vast enterprise to build a railroad from Missouri to the Pacific in terms of the remarkable expansion of the United States of America. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

David Haward Bain spent fourteen years researching and writing this book. He is the author of three previous works of well-reviewed non-fiction. His essays have been published in Smithsonian and American Heritage, and he reviews regularly for The New York Times Book Review and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Bain teaches at Middlebury College, works with the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and lives in Orwell, Vermont.

Reviews

Uniting the country by a transcontinental railroad had a special resonance for the generation that had recently fought the Civil War. Bain's comprehensive study starts with the visionaries who conceived the idea during the two decades before the war (a mere 40 years after the Lewis and Clark expedition). As Bain (Whose Woods These Are) explains, the dreamers gave way to the engineers and entrepreneurs who fixed the route, assembled financing, drafted a work force and launched the two lines toward the eventual meeting point at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869. The story alternates between the Union Pacific driving west from Omaha and the Central Pacific blasting through the mountains from California. About a score of the principal players appear throughout the book, their triumphs and depredations interwoven in a richly (sometimes overly) detailed composition. Bain specifies his heroes and villains, and does not neglect the political fixers who infested Washington, D.C., emptying their satchels of money as they circulated through Congress. The writing is particularly evocative as Bain examines the impact of the railroad on the Plains Indians, whose traditional way of life was eradicated by the line. Bain also deals knowledgeably with the imported Chinese workers, the "Celestials," who were unsurpassed in their tenacity and work ethic. Displaying energetic research and enthusiasm for the subject matter, Bain brings the linking of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the era that produced it, back to life. Maps. History Book Club selection; BOMC selection; 8-city author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A compelling, comprehensive account of one of history's greatest construction projects. On May 10, 1869, when telegraph lines carried the news that the transcontinental railroad was finally complete, cannons in New York City and San Francisco roared, fire alarms went off in major cities across the country, and tens of thousands of people poured into the streets to celebrate. Similar festivities might well accompany the publication of this remarkable book. Bain (Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines, 1984, etc.), who spent fourteen years in research, moves with impressive felicity through this complex, fascinating subject. He focuses the light of his considerable intelligence on a vast array of topics, brightly illuminating the daunting construction problems (one tunnel in the High Sierra was 1600 feet long), the alliances (quickly formed, quickly broken) of politicians and entrepreneurs, the pervasive corruption of Gilded Age public officials (a ``Babel of special interests,'' Bain calls it), the tragic relocations (and eventual decimation) of the Plains Indians, the exploitation of construction workers, the genesis of legendary Western towns (Laramie and Cheyenne among others). With disinterested clarity he portrays rail barons Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and many othersand sketches some supporting actors whose names would later be known in other contexts: Henry M. Stanley (the reporter who found Dr. Livingstone), George A. Custer, Mark Twain. Bain chronicles the egregious excesses of the builders: the acres of prairie set afire for nocturnal entertainment, the carloads of Easterners who wanted to shoot buffalo for sport, the tens of thousands of dollars that changed hands when decisions were made. Humorous and ironic moments abound as well. The friendly Pawnee like to joyride on the roofs of boxcars; ``a fresh importation of strumpets'' arrive for duty in Julesburg, Colorado; and some Chinese workers are dissuaded from laboring in the desert by tales of 100-foot-long snakes whose meal of preference is Chinese. Empire Express is a brilliant work, a stunning fusion of splendid scholarship and graceful writing. (16 pages of maps and photos, not seen) (Book-of-the-Month Club, History Book Club) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Connecting the coasts by rail was one of the great achievements of 19th-century America. To tell the story of this epic, Bain knits together excellent storytelling and exhaustive research in a rich contextual tale of vision, ambition, and, ultimately, political and personal corruption.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067080889X
• ISBN 13: 9780670808892
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 797