Empire Express; Building the First Transcontinental Railroad

xiii, [5], 797, [1] pages. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. David Haward Bain has conducted prose and poetry workshops at Middlebury College since 1987, and has been associated with the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in varying capacities since 1980. Born in Camden, New Jersey and raised in Port Washington, New York, he was educated at Boston University and then lived in New York City for 14 years, working first in book publishing and then as a full-time writer. He has received grants from the Rinehart, Lebensburger, and Wyndam Foundations, and a fellowship from the N.Y. State Council on the Arts/P.E.N. Foundation. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Mount Independence Coalition, a private group supporting the educational mission of the Mount Independence State Historic Site, a Revolutionary War fortification on the Lake Champlain shore, five miles from his home in Orwell, Vermont. Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, is an epic narrative history covering not only the dramatic struggle to link the oceans with twin bands of iron but three decades in which America doubled in size, fought three wars, and discovered itself. A main selection of the Book of the Month Club and a selection of the History Book Club, Empire Express was a finalist both for the Los Angeles Times Book Award in History and the Francis Parkman Prize, and won the New England Historical Association's and the National Railroad and Locomotive Historical Society's annual book prizes; the author was elected a Fellow in the Society of American Historians. The work was featured on Brian Lamb's C-SPAN show, "Booknotes," and received extensive media and review coverage. It was adapted by PBS "The American Experience" into a 2-hour documentary (Hidden Hill Productions), airing January 2003; Bain served as co-producer and principal commentator. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated].…