stephen ambrose nothing like it in the world

It would have been better if Ambrose did not frequently interrupt himself to tell us how important and amazing everything is. ' Enjoyable, especially when it covers the feats of strength and organization required for tracklaying and tunnel digging. ' Stephen Ambrose does churn them out like butter but this is a good one. I can't imagine there is any better one volume source on the building of the first transcontinental railroad. ' so interesting!! But it might be for history nerds only. If you want to know how/who/where the railroads were built and joined east/west, then this is the book. ' Another great story by Stephen Ambrose. Overall Performance: Narration Rating: Story Rating:.I am glad I was not one of the guys swinging sledge hammers for years building the rr.' I like to know the 'hows' of some of history's big moments, which are usually only glossed over. I learned a lot that I had never thought of before. 'Very interesting book on how the transcontinental rr was built. Nothing like this great work had ever been seen in the world when the last spike, a golden one, was driven in Promontory Peak, Utah, in 1869, as the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific tracks were joined.Īmbrose writes with power and eloquence about the brave men - the famous and the unheralded, ordinary men doing the extraordinary - who accomplished the spectacular feat that made the continent into a nation. In building a railroad, there is only one decisive spot - the end of the track. The surveyors, the men who picked the route, living off buffalo, deer, and antelope. At its peak, the work force approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as 15,000 workers on each line.

government pitted two companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads - against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise comes to life. Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. Ambrose offers an historical successor to his universally acclaimed Undaunted Courage. In this account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage, Stephen E.

Stephen ambrose nothing like it in the world