What do you think?
Rate this book
The Longest Line on the Map: The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas
From the award-winning author of American Canopy , a dazzling account of the world’s longest road, the Pan-American Highway, and the epic quest to link North and South America, a dramatic story of commerce, technology, politics, and the divergent fates of the Americas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Pan-American Highway, monument to a century’s worth of diplomacy and investment, education and engineering, scandal and sweat, is the longest road in the world, passable everywhere save the mythic Darien Gap that straddles Panama and Colombia. The highway’s history, however, has long remained a mystery, a story scattered among government archives, private papers, and fading memories. In contrast to the Panama Canal and its vast literature, the Pan-American Highway—the United States’ other great twentieth-century hemispheric infrastructure project—has become an orphan of the past, effectively erased from the story of the “American Century.”
The Longest Line on the Map uncovers this incredible tale for the first time and weaves it into a tapestry that fascinates, informs, and delights. Rutkow’s narrative forces the reader to take seriously the Why couldn’t the Americas have become a single region that “is” and not two near irreconcilable halves that “are”? Whether you’re fascinated by the history of the Americas, or you’ve dreamed of driving around the globe, or you simply love world records and the stories behind them, The Longest Line on the Map is a riveting narrative, a lost epic of hemispheric scale.
The Pan-American Highway, monument to a century’s worth of diplomacy and investment, education and engineering, scandal and sweat, is the longest road in the world, passable everywhere save the mythic Darien Gap that straddles Panama and Colombia. The highway’s history, however, has long remained a mystery, a story scattered among government archives, private papers, and fading memories. In contrast to the Panama Canal and its vast literature, the Pan-American Highway—the United States’ other great twentieth-century hemispheric infrastructure project—has become an orphan of the past, effectively erased from the story of the “American Century.”
The Longest Line on the Map uncovers this incredible tale for the first time and weaves it into a tapestry that fascinates, informs, and delights. Rutkow’s narrative forces the reader to take seriously the Why couldn’t the Americas have become a single region that “is” and not two near irreconcilable halves that “are”? Whether you’re fascinated by the history of the Americas, or you’ve dreamed of driving around the globe, or you simply love world records and the stories behind them, The Longest Line on the Map is a riveting narrative, a lost epic of hemispheric scale.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 8, 2019
86 people are currently reading
708 people want to read
About the author
Eric Rutkow
2 books12 followersEric Rutkow is an assistant professor of history at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, and the author of The Longest Line on the Map. His first book, American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation (2012), received the Association of American Publishers’ PROSE Award for US history and was named one of the top books of the year by Smithsonian magazine. He earned his BA and PhD from Yale and his JD from Harvard.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
December 1, 2018
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and I thank them for the opportunity.
From the title of this book it appears to be a history of the PanAmerican Highway and it is, however, it also so much more that the book should probably be retitled as it cover 150 years of history and only about half or less deals with the titled highway. About the first 40% of the book covers the initial idea of building a Pan-American Railroad. Since this effort begins shortly after our Civil War railroads are obviously the latest technological advance in transportation and the idea and the effort does garner interest and effort. The history of this effort was interesting but it really had very little to do with the Pan-American Highway. I can understand a history giving the titled topic a bit of background information and a picture of an idea's evolution but Mr. Rutkow seems not to have learned the old adage about less being more. The railroad effort suffers from politics, bureaucracy, and greed and it's realization is so delayed that a new technology now gleams on the horizon, the automobile. So does the author now start talking about the Pan-American Highway? Of course not. I think our author is a very diligent researcher and discovered what the automobile needed to be a transportation success was good roads. The author then devotes at least the next 10% of the book to a history of the paved roads in the United States. The Pan-American Highway isn't even specifically mentioned in this book until well passed the midway point of this history.
Once the idea of a Pan-American Highway is conceived the railroad plan is completely forgotten. Virtually all the countries in Central America and the U.S. are intrigued by the idea of a highway uniting North and South America and what it could do for the economies of all these nations. This highway is a public works project on the scale of the Panama Canal but unlike the history of that project where the technical and logistical challenges of the builders was the story and was interesting that isn't the case with the highway. While the challenges faced by the builders were daunting the project was only accomplished in piecemeal fashion because the real obstacles the builders faced were human. The story of this highway isn't about the actual building but about the efforts to get it built. We are given detailed treatment of the political intrigues of every Central American nation involved in this project, every American Bureaucratic agency involved, every Congressional committee and its powerful chairman, every Central American coup d'etat and its resulting military dictator and in later years we even get the Sierra Club and the EPA . The story is about the nightmare of getting anything funded and built when dealing with a group of people and entities that all have their own agendas and egos and the author gives us this story in a depth and detail that goes way beyond what is needed. Sadly, while appreciate the research and the writing and I did find much of it unexpectedly interesting there was just too much unnecessary material which made it deadly boring. This is not a book that will attract the general reader and probably not even the dedicated history geek (guilty). If you have an interest in Central American political history or public works projects then you might find this book of value it drained my interest and became a chore to finish.
From the title of this book it appears to be a history of the PanAmerican Highway and it is, however, it also so much more that the book should probably be retitled as it cover 150 years of history and only about half or less deals with the titled highway. About the first 40% of the book covers the initial idea of building a Pan-American Railroad. Since this effort begins shortly after our Civil War railroads are obviously the latest technological advance in transportation and the idea and the effort does garner interest and effort. The history of this effort was interesting but it really had very little to do with the Pan-American Highway. I can understand a history giving the titled topic a bit of background information and a picture of an idea's evolution but Mr. Rutkow seems not to have learned the old adage about less being more. The railroad effort suffers from politics, bureaucracy, and greed and it's realization is so delayed that a new technology now gleams on the horizon, the automobile. So does the author now start talking about the Pan-American Highway? Of course not. I think our author is a very diligent researcher and discovered what the automobile needed to be a transportation success was good roads. The author then devotes at least the next 10% of the book to a history of the paved roads in the United States. The Pan-American Highway isn't even specifically mentioned in this book until well passed the midway point of this history.
Once the idea of a Pan-American Highway is conceived the railroad plan is completely forgotten. Virtually all the countries in Central America and the U.S. are intrigued by the idea of a highway uniting North and South America and what it could do for the economies of all these nations. This highway is a public works project on the scale of the Panama Canal but unlike the history of that project where the technical and logistical challenges of the builders was the story and was interesting that isn't the case with the highway. While the challenges faced by the builders were daunting the project was only accomplished in piecemeal fashion because the real obstacles the builders faced were human. The story of this highway isn't about the actual building but about the efforts to get it built. We are given detailed treatment of the political intrigues of every Central American nation involved in this project, every American Bureaucratic agency involved, every Congressional committee and its powerful chairman, every Central American coup d'etat and its resulting military dictator and in later years we even get the Sierra Club and the EPA . The story is about the nightmare of getting anything funded and built when dealing with a group of people and entities that all have their own agendas and egos and the author gives us this story in a depth and detail that goes way beyond what is needed. Sadly, while appreciate the research and the writing and I did find much of it unexpectedly interesting there was just too much unnecessary material which made it deadly boring. This is not a book that will attract the general reader and probably not even the dedicated history geek (guilty). If you have an interest in Central American political history or public works projects then you might find this book of value it drained my interest and became a chore to finish.
December 23, 2018
The author has clearly done exhaustive research into writing this book. He methodically exposes fascinating details of staggering engineering challenges and political obstacles to achieve the dream of the Americas united, which even after 150 years, remains unfinished with a 60-mile long break called the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia. I commend him for his time and effort into an extremely interesting topic. Thanks to Scribner for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
January 31, 2019
Like many others before me, I have felt a fascination with the Pan-American highway since I first learned of its existence. Unfortunately, this book was a bit of a disappointment. It spent a lot of time talking about a proposed railroad, then about the history of roads in the U.S., diplomatic snafus on the way to agreeing to build the road. After that the author spent a disappointing amount of time talking about the actual building of the road.
December 23, 2018
This book was a major disappointment. The subtitle "The United States, the Pan-American Highway and the Quest to Link the Americas" while addressed in the book, left a great deal to be desired. The first half of the book rambles on about early attempts to link the span with a railroad and only gets to the building of the highway later. The author;s writing style is not engaging and he tends to believe that a great amount of filler is needed to make the book look like more that it should be.
I can not recommend this book. There has to be a better one on the subject out there.
I received a free Kindle copy of The Longest Line on the Map by Eric Rutkow courtesy of Net Galley and Scribner, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.
I requested this book as the description sounded interesting (and as I learned can be deceiving). This is the first book by the author that I have read.
I can not recommend this book. There has to be a better one on the subject out there.
I received a free Kindle copy of The Longest Line on the Map by Eric Rutkow courtesy of Net Galley and Scribner, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.
I requested this book as the description sounded interesting (and as I learned can be deceiving). This is the first book by the author that I have read.
January 20, 2025
The Longest Line on the Map
Author: Eric Rutlow
Publisher: Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Publishing Date: 2019
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
I’m on a nonfiction kick, seem to be getting more enjoyment out of them than fiction. Love travelogs, but this one turned out to be more history and politics than travelog.
_________________
The Feel:
Told the story they wanted to tell rather than the one promised in the title.
Least Favorite Character:
Most of the Oligarchs of rail and finance who appear in these pages are severe bastards. Same with the politicos involved. Whole lot of colonial thinking, moving pieces around on a chessboard and borders and lines around on the map, with no regard for those pieces and lines representing people’s lives.
The blustery Congressman/Senator who gins up a storm of conspiracy, forces hearings, lets fly accusation after accusation, and then, the report doesn't move the charges he made forwards in a way that they could go before a judge at a criminal proceeding is classic. Horrid. But classic.
We Can’t Go On Together With Suspicious Minds:
Whole lotta dragging of the feet and talking about other stuff before it gets to the Pan-American Highway. Railroads, and the politics and science of American roadways and highways. Halfway through the book before the concept of a Pan-American Highway is even broached and, even then, it is all about politics rather than the surveying, logistics, materials, and route of the actual highway. I realize that in international circumstances all of that is part and parcel, but we’re over 200+ pages deep.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
If they wanted to write a Pan-American Railroad book, they should have. Doing 140+ pages of that as preamble seems a bit much. Lot of good info there, but not really, truly on topic. Same with a history of roadbuilding and science of roadbuilding, both of these could have been done in service to the story of the Pan-American highway story, instead of taking the entire middle section of the book, after the preamble was taken up by the railroads and dreams of a Pan-American Railroad, instead of the titular subject matter.
Tropes:
The historical namedropping is large in the overly large, off-topic section on railroads, railroading, and colonialism. Not unwarranted, but some of the famous names that cameo, wander around the extreme edges of the narrative, and then disappear, doesn’t exactly advance the story.
Turd in the Punchbowl:
Spends the entire first third of the book mired in the aborted history of the Pan-American Railroads fits and starts and bits and pieces, and sidelighting to the Panama Canal before we even get to the idea of the Pan-American Highway. This is going a long way to justify the last line of the subtitle, The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas.
Wisdom:
Dictators for life and American tycoons made life hell for the peoples of Central America during the so-called Gilded Age.
Juxtaposition:
Whole lotta financial speculating dressed up in high ideals butting up against realities on the ground.
The names dropped in the railroading section are huge, mythic, American historical figures…while the ones in the roadbuilding history and science section, not so much.
Anachronism:
Bicyclist vs Farmer evolving into Farmer vs Motorist in the Good Roads movement.
Logic Gaps:
The jingoistic crap epitomized by the purported French and British awestruckedness at the nascent American roadbuilding ingenuity while both having multiple orders of magnitude more usable, driveable, and better conditioned roads than America is an asinine assertion that I’m sure played well to the rubes reading the newspapers, biographies, and monographs of that era.
Questions and Answers:
Why wouldn’t you build bridges across the Panama Canal as part of the construction of the canal in the first place?
The Unexpected:
The Pan-American Highway…except for this little 250 mile wide piece.
Forgotten Lesson/Forgotten Common Sense:
Missed Opportunity:
Barely a hundred pages left and the author hasn’t done more than talk platitudes and politics of the South American part of the Pan-American Highway. Short shrift is being given to that. Once the focus of the books shifted away from the railroads and onto the highway, it bogged down in Central America and stayed there. It is interesting, but it isn’t completing the road, which won’t be completed anyway thanks to the Darien Gap. The highway, while it is traversable all the way to Panama and across the canal, doesn’t connect into Columbia through the swamps and rivers of the Darien Gap.
_________________
Last Page Sound:
Well...so…they never really finished it. Went into this wanting more travelogue than history. I like history, just not what I was here for with this one. Got too much Gilded Age, Robber Baron than I really would have preferred. And spent way too much time on the railroads. Totally left out what happened in South America, whether the road networks down there became interconnected or not in this period. “Pan-American”, in name only.
Author Assessment:
I enjoyed the writing and the story, but the essay seemed to wander from its purported focus and lose itself in side quests along the way.
Author: Eric Rutlow
Publisher: Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Publishing Date: 2019
=======================
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Why this book:
I’m on a nonfiction kick, seem to be getting more enjoyment out of them than fiction. Love travelogs, but this one turned out to be more history and politics than travelog.
_________________
The Feel:
Told the story they wanted to tell rather than the one promised in the title.
Least Favorite Character:
Most of the Oligarchs of rail and finance who appear in these pages are severe bastards. Same with the politicos involved. Whole lot of colonial thinking, moving pieces around on a chessboard and borders and lines around on the map, with no regard for those pieces and lines representing people’s lives.
The blustery Congressman/Senator who gins up a storm of conspiracy, forces hearings, lets fly accusation after accusation, and then, the report doesn't move the charges he made forwards in a way that they could go before a judge at a criminal proceeding is classic. Horrid. But classic.
We Can’t Go On Together With Suspicious Minds:
Whole lotta dragging of the feet and talking about other stuff before it gets to the Pan-American Highway. Railroads, and the politics and science of American roadways and highways. Halfway through the book before the concept of a Pan-American Highway is even broached and, even then, it is all about politics rather than the surveying, logistics, materials, and route of the actual highway. I realize that in international circumstances all of that is part and parcel, but we’re over 200+ pages deep.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
If they wanted to write a Pan-American Railroad book, they should have. Doing 140+ pages of that as preamble seems a bit much. Lot of good info there, but not really, truly on topic. Same with a history of roadbuilding and science of roadbuilding, both of these could have been done in service to the story of the Pan-American highway story, instead of taking the entire middle section of the book, after the preamble was taken up by the railroads and dreams of a Pan-American Railroad, instead of the titular subject matter.
Tropes:
The historical namedropping is large in the overly large, off-topic section on railroads, railroading, and colonialism. Not unwarranted, but some of the famous names that cameo, wander around the extreme edges of the narrative, and then disappear, doesn’t exactly advance the story.
Turd in the Punchbowl:
Spends the entire first third of the book mired in the aborted history of the Pan-American Railroads fits and starts and bits and pieces, and sidelighting to the Panama Canal before we even get to the idea of the Pan-American Highway. This is going a long way to justify the last line of the subtitle, The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas.
Wisdom:
Dictators for life and American tycoons made life hell for the peoples of Central America during the so-called Gilded Age.
Juxtaposition:
Whole lotta financial speculating dressed up in high ideals butting up against realities on the ground.
The names dropped in the railroading section are huge, mythic, American historical figures…while the ones in the roadbuilding history and science section, not so much.
Anachronism:
Bicyclist vs Farmer evolving into Farmer vs Motorist in the Good Roads movement.
Logic Gaps:
The jingoistic crap epitomized by the purported French and British awestruckedness at the nascent American roadbuilding ingenuity while both having multiple orders of magnitude more usable, driveable, and better conditioned roads than America is an asinine assertion that I’m sure played well to the rubes reading the newspapers, biographies, and monographs of that era.
Questions and Answers:
Why wouldn’t you build bridges across the Panama Canal as part of the construction of the canal in the first place?
The Unexpected:
The Pan-American Highway…except for this little 250 mile wide piece.
Forgotten Lesson/Forgotten Common Sense:
Missed Opportunity:
Barely a hundred pages left and the author hasn’t done more than talk platitudes and politics of the South American part of the Pan-American Highway. Short shrift is being given to that. Once the focus of the books shifted away from the railroads and onto the highway, it bogged down in Central America and stayed there. It is interesting, but it isn’t completing the road, which won’t be completed anyway thanks to the Darien Gap. The highway, while it is traversable all the way to Panama and across the canal, doesn’t connect into Columbia through the swamps and rivers of the Darien Gap.
_________________
Last Page Sound:
Well...so…they never really finished it. Went into this wanting more travelogue than history. I like history, just not what I was here for with this one. Got too much Gilded Age, Robber Baron than I really would have preferred. And spent way too much time on the railroads. Totally left out what happened in South America, whether the road networks down there became interconnected or not in this period. “Pan-American”, in name only.
Author Assessment:
I enjoyed the writing and the story, but the essay seemed to wander from its purported focus and lose itself in side quests along the way.
May 30, 2021
The Pan-American Highway was supposed to link the two Americas in a bond that would survive any animosity and Communist subversion, but it ended up being a road to nowhere. If life were a highway, this one would stop somewhere between the border of Panama and Colombia. More road-song related puns...
Anyway, this is a perfectly good history of an idea whose time has seemingly passed, but which remains tantalizing close to being realized in many ways even today. "The Longest Line on the Map" tells the epic story of how the notion of connecting North and South America with a huge line (first of railroads, than with a highway) first took root in the late Nineteenth Century, after an enterprising American author spent a hellish trip on an ocean voyage from Argentina to the US and thought "why not by rail?" The Americas are actually a figment of geographical imagination, as they are obviously connected via what is today the country of Panama (as indeed "Europe" is merely a conceit enforced by the arbitrary selection of the Ural Mountains as the cut-off between it and Asia, and Africa is connected to those two via the Sinai peninsula). But there had never been a connecting path overland, open to travel via rail or automobile, and efforts begun in the late 1800's to connect them by rail gave way in the 1920's to do so by highway, as the newfangled cars of the era made trains seem old fashioned and boring.
Eric Rutkow does a good job conveying the epic span of history that encompasses the story of the Pan-American Highway, but perhaps the epic nature of it doesn't make for a compelling book overall. It's perhaps too long of a history, with too many moving parts and individuals, for it to work as a book. Certain episodes in the history of the highway (such as the enterprising Tewkesbury solo expedition of the early 1940's) are interesting, but overall the book is a history of Congressional meetings and appropriations reviews. Plus, I was thinking that Rutkow might be doing a travelogue along the route of the (still unfinished) road itself, with historical facts integrated into it. It's not that, but it's still pretty good if not always compelling. Plus, I was left wondering what about the South American portion of the highway, which isn't talked about much here (it's the Latin American portion which gets the lion's share of attention, which makes sense as that's the primary avenue that the US helped to fund, and is pretty interesting to read about when revolutions over the years threaten to derail the route).
In the end, the fabled center point of the highway runs through the "Darian gap," which ends up being a wildlife preserve unique in ecology and worthy of being saved from the depredations of mankind's quest to connect the continents. The Pan-American Highway was a long-standing dream that is still deferred as of this reading, but perhaps someday it will come to completion. This book is a good, if not great, examination of that complicated history and legacy.
Anyway, this is a perfectly good history of an idea whose time has seemingly passed, but which remains tantalizing close to being realized in many ways even today. "The Longest Line on the Map" tells the epic story of how the notion of connecting North and South America with a huge line (first of railroads, than with a highway) first took root in the late Nineteenth Century, after an enterprising American author spent a hellish trip on an ocean voyage from Argentina to the US and thought "why not by rail?" The Americas are actually a figment of geographical imagination, as they are obviously connected via what is today the country of Panama (as indeed "Europe" is merely a conceit enforced by the arbitrary selection of the Ural Mountains as the cut-off between it and Asia, and Africa is connected to those two via the Sinai peninsula). But there had never been a connecting path overland, open to travel via rail or automobile, and efforts begun in the late 1800's to connect them by rail gave way in the 1920's to do so by highway, as the newfangled cars of the era made trains seem old fashioned and boring.
Eric Rutkow does a good job conveying the epic span of history that encompasses the story of the Pan-American Highway, but perhaps the epic nature of it doesn't make for a compelling book overall. It's perhaps too long of a history, with too many moving parts and individuals, for it to work as a book. Certain episodes in the history of the highway (such as the enterprising Tewkesbury solo expedition of the early 1940's) are interesting, but overall the book is a history of Congressional meetings and appropriations reviews. Plus, I was thinking that Rutkow might be doing a travelogue along the route of the (still unfinished) road itself, with historical facts integrated into it. It's not that, but it's still pretty good if not always compelling. Plus, I was left wondering what about the South American portion of the highway, which isn't talked about much here (it's the Latin American portion which gets the lion's share of attention, which makes sense as that's the primary avenue that the US helped to fund, and is pretty interesting to read about when revolutions over the years threaten to derail the route).
In the end, the fabled center point of the highway runs through the "Darian gap," which ends up being a wildlife preserve unique in ecology and worthy of being saved from the depredations of mankind's quest to connect the continents. The Pan-American Highway was a long-standing dream that is still deferred as of this reading, but perhaps someday it will come to completion. This book is a good, if not great, examination of that complicated history and legacy.
December 30, 2018
Murder. Mayhem. Conspiracy. Lunacy. Betrayal. Competition. Secrecy. Power. And money. Lots and lots of money. This book has all of these aspects and much more [think indigenous tribes and cannibals and bugs and snakes of unusual sizes].
Filled with all these issues, plus several Presidents [sitting and former]. a Secretary of State who's vision was way bigger than himself, Andrew Carnegie and the whole Mexican [and eventually all of Latin America] government, this book tells the story of trying to build first the Pan-American Railroad and then when that failed, the Pan-American Highway. And did I mention how much money was involved?
Filled with some amazing stories of adventure, the racism of the time [there were parts that made me very angry - it was frustrating to once again read about what creeps we American's were to those we deemed beneath us] and the arrogance of the men of the times [past AND present], there were parts of this book that were both amazing and frustrating to read.
My main issue with this book [and why it got the 2 star rating] was the way it jumped around - I never was completely sure what era we were in [as each new character was introduced, the backtracking became very confusing and disorientating] - there was just so much back and forth that it got pretty tedious at points to read.
There was also a lot of very dry spots - filled with inconsequential facts and tidbits that a couple of times I actually fell asleep while trying to read it. I found myself skimming much of these sections and it truly took away from the better parts of the book.
My take from this book is this - there was a grand vision to first build railroad, and when that failed, to build a highway, even in the face of insurmountable offs and when faced with failure over and over again, continued to throw time, resources, and an insane amount of money [close to 1 Billion Dollars when the project was finally abandoned fully] at the project that was never ever going to be successful in the way it was envisioned. It was successful in aiding wars [so many of the Latin America wars came from the easier access due to the railroad and the highway and from the infighting due to both as well], wasting money, and it was successfully a ginormous failure.
This book had great promise - the premise is an amazing and interesting one. Unfortunately, the execution of it was less than successful.
A thank you to NetGalley and Scribner Publishing for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Filled with all these issues, plus several Presidents [sitting and former]. a Secretary of State who's vision was way bigger than himself, Andrew Carnegie and the whole Mexican [and eventually all of Latin America] government, this book tells the story of trying to build first the Pan-American Railroad and then when that failed, the Pan-American Highway. And did I mention how much money was involved?
Filled with some amazing stories of adventure, the racism of the time [there were parts that made me very angry - it was frustrating to once again read about what creeps we American's were to those we deemed beneath us] and the arrogance of the men of the times [past AND present], there were parts of this book that were both amazing and frustrating to read.
My main issue with this book [and why it got the 2 star rating] was the way it jumped around - I never was completely sure what era we were in [as each new character was introduced, the backtracking became very confusing and disorientating] - there was just so much back and forth that it got pretty tedious at points to read.
There was also a lot of very dry spots - filled with inconsequential facts and tidbits that a couple of times I actually fell asleep while trying to read it. I found myself skimming much of these sections and it truly took away from the better parts of the book.
My take from this book is this - there was a grand vision to first build railroad, and when that failed, to build a highway, even in the face of insurmountable offs and when faced with failure over and over again, continued to throw time, resources, and an insane amount of money [close to 1 Billion Dollars when the project was finally abandoned fully] at the project that was never ever going to be successful in the way it was envisioned. It was successful in aiding wars [so many of the Latin America wars came from the easier access due to the railroad and the highway and from the infighting due to both as well], wasting money, and it was successfully a ginormous failure.
This book had great promise - the premise is an amazing and interesting one. Unfortunately, the execution of it was less than successful.
A thank you to NetGalley and Scribner Publishing for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 17, 2019
This was a very interesting topic, presented by a professor of history, with a very scholarly, and somewhat dry approach. The title was also somewhat deceptive, since getting to the Pan-American Highway itself took about 200 pages of back story. With these two factors against it, I could not rank it higher.
It started off with a bang, with a terrific introduction kicked off by a long quote from On the Road about driving into Mexico on the Pan-American Highway. How could I not be intrigued? And as one who loves road trips, and feels an affinity for Latin American cultures, I was also very interested.
Getting to the concept of a highway through the Americas was preceded by a good deal of history which centered on the development of railroads in the United States, Mexico, and the Central and South American countries. This is really a book in itself, and perhaps should have been the first of two volumes (or even three, with the middle one being the Panama Canal). As it was, I raced through it to get to the section which focused on the construction, such as it was, of the road.
There were some colorful characters along the way, and fascinating information about the effect United Fruit had on the Central American countries, good and bad. I was looking for more insights into the cultures and peoples of the regions, and how they were impacted, but there was not as much of this as I would have liked. History, in my opinion, is far more about people and concepts than about dollars and cents, though of course, knowing what the US Congress appropriated for construction was interesting. The author should have added parentheticals to indicate what the amounts would be in current dollars to add context.
After reading the book, I had some conclusions that are relevant to today's economic, political and humanitarian crises centering on immigration. If the US had pursued more thoughtful policies, and delivered further assistance and funding to the struggling countries in Central America and parts of South America, and more supportive trade agreements, I believe we would not be facing the issues we have today. We are directly and indirectly responsible for the drug trade, gang wars, political unrest and violence millions face in Central America and certain South American countries. With all of our might and power, we could have done a lot more good in the past, and should not be punishing people who come here now to escape some of what we created due to prejudice and shortsightedness.
It started off with a bang, with a terrific introduction kicked off by a long quote from On the Road about driving into Mexico on the Pan-American Highway. How could I not be intrigued? And as one who loves road trips, and feels an affinity for Latin American cultures, I was also very interested.
Getting to the concept of a highway through the Americas was preceded by a good deal of history which centered on the development of railroads in the United States, Mexico, and the Central and South American countries. This is really a book in itself, and perhaps should have been the first of two volumes (or even three, with the middle one being the Panama Canal). As it was, I raced through it to get to the section which focused on the construction, such as it was, of the road.
There were some colorful characters along the way, and fascinating information about the effect United Fruit had on the Central American countries, good and bad. I was looking for more insights into the cultures and peoples of the regions, and how they were impacted, but there was not as much of this as I would have liked. History, in my opinion, is far more about people and concepts than about dollars and cents, though of course, knowing what the US Congress appropriated for construction was interesting. The author should have added parentheticals to indicate what the amounts would be in current dollars to add context.
After reading the book, I had some conclusions that are relevant to today's economic, political and humanitarian crises centering on immigration. If the US had pursued more thoughtful policies, and delivered further assistance and funding to the struggling countries in Central America and parts of South America, and more supportive trade agreements, I believe we would not be facing the issues we have today. We are directly and indirectly responsible for the drug trade, gang wars, political unrest and violence millions face in Central America and certain South American countries. With all of our might and power, we could have done a lot more good in the past, and should not be punishing people who come here now to escape some of what we created due to prejudice and shortsightedness.
November 5, 2018
I thoroughly enjoy books on history that read more like a novel than a dry textbook. this is one of those. Rutkow covers such a wide range of geography and social politics that it is impossible for the normal reader to verify the details he presents. When he covered the importance of theodore Roosevelt to the Western Hemisphere, primarily the Panama Canal, the author mentioned that TR earned his western chops while ranching in the Badlands of South Dakota. This is a jarring error that brings to wonder what other mistakes were made that are not so obvious. There are two Badlands, the other being North Dakota where TR spent his time. The title also implies the use of maps and there wwere none.
April 27, 2021
An exhaustive and sometimes tedious history of trying to connect the Americas over land. I absolutely loved this book, but unless you have a particularly strong interest in maps and public works projects I imagine you might find it pretty long-winded, even if you typically enjoy reading detailed histories.
June 7, 2020
An Engagingly Skimmable Popular History
This would have made a brilliant two-part "New Yorker" long piece. It has that John McPhee wander about feel, and an approach that varies between too deep and too shallow. But the beauty is that if you're a decent skimmer you can turn pretty much any popular history into a manageable length. Adopting that approach I got along just fine with this book.
I was a bit surprised to start around the Civil War era, but of course Central and South America have been down there for some time, and even the earliest politicians saw possibility and danger in trade and diplomacy. Most of us know only a few bits and pieces about the history of the United States from the early 1800's to the end of the century, and I found it fascinating to follow the wheeling and dealing of politicians like Henry Clay and James Monroe. It was also instructive to see how clueless the U.S. has been regarding Latin America since, like, forever.
Anyway, does this really pertain to the Pan-American Highway? Well, sort of. But it's very interesting, (and skimmable), and gives you an idea of what a grab bag of historical and political stuff this book is. You get railroads, and Simon Bolivar, and tariffs, and jungle, and Federalist disputes, and little mini-histories about all sorts of things. I enjoyed it all very much, and I came to appreciate how young the U.S. is, and how recently things we take for granted actually came into existence. (The Organization of American States only dates back to 1948.)
The book does offer a ripping, if sober, description of the adventures of Richard Tewkesbury, the amateur explorer who wandered the Darien region of Columbia in the 30's and 40's in search of a sort of highway route Eldorado. From there, though, we just watch the whole Highway go down the bureaucratic and political drain.
So, as I say - over long and sometimes focused on the wrong facts and topics. But still loaded with interest, personality, and pluck. The book shone a light on a time and on places unfamiliar to me, and that was good enough.
(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
r the publisher of this book.)
This would have made a brilliant two-part "New Yorker" long piece. It has that John McPhee wander about feel, and an approach that varies between too deep and too shallow. But the beauty is that if you're a decent skimmer you can turn pretty much any popular history into a manageable length. Adopting that approach I got along just fine with this book.
I was a bit surprised to start around the Civil War era, but of course Central and South America have been down there for some time, and even the earliest politicians saw possibility and danger in trade and diplomacy. Most of us know only a few bits and pieces about the history of the United States from the early 1800's to the end of the century, and I found it fascinating to follow the wheeling and dealing of politicians like Henry Clay and James Monroe. It was also instructive to see how clueless the U.S. has been regarding Latin America since, like, forever.
Anyway, does this really pertain to the Pan-American Highway? Well, sort of. But it's very interesting, (and skimmable), and gives you an idea of what a grab bag of historical and political stuff this book is. You get railroads, and Simon Bolivar, and tariffs, and jungle, and Federalist disputes, and little mini-histories about all sorts of things. I enjoyed it all very much, and I came to appreciate how young the U.S. is, and how recently things we take for granted actually came into existence. (The Organization of American States only dates back to 1948.)
The book does offer a ripping, if sober, description of the adventures of Richard Tewkesbury, the amateur explorer who wandered the Darien region of Columbia in the 30's and 40's in search of a sort of highway route Eldorado. From there, though, we just watch the whole Highway go down the bureaucratic and political drain.
So, as I say - over long and sometimes focused on the wrong facts and topics. But still loaded with interest, personality, and pluck. The book shone a light on a time and on places unfamiliar to me, and that was good enough.
(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
r the publisher of this book.)
December 28, 2018
Perhaps useful to students of road building who wish to see how to fail to build a road. Others should stay away.
I apologize to the nice people at Netgalley and Simon & Schuster but I cannot give this book a better review. I think that this book's heart is in the right place but it just didn't hold my interest and it was too damn long.
I am the sort of tie tack who would normally lap up a history of a road, but this book promised too much and delivered to little. For example, when Jack Kerouac and Che Guevara are mentioned in the introduction, one could reasonably expect that they would appear elsewhere in the narrative. Maybe they wrote about a moment when they were travelling along the road? Anyway, even if Jack and Che are not particularly interesting to you, they are still far more compelling than the parade of self-regarding civil engineers, tyrannic Latin American strongmen, dishonest construction contractors, whoring laborers, and short-attention-span politicians who otherwise populate these pages. Long blockquotes from the speeches and official statements of the ever-changing parade of squabbling characters march by with mind-numbing regularity.
In addition, the initial 40 percent of the book is not actually about the attempted construction of the Pan-American Highway. First, there is a long chapter on unsuccessful attempts to build a Pan-American railroad, and then there is a comparatively short chapter on the political machinations exclusively in the US when the rise of automobile caused a demand for driveable roads. These chapters could have been cut by 80 percent -- they have little or nothing to do with the Pan-American Highway.
This book is a real disappointment.
I apologize to the nice people at Netgalley and Simon & Schuster but I cannot give this book a better review. I think that this book's heart is in the right place but it just didn't hold my interest and it was too damn long.
I am the sort of tie tack who would normally lap up a history of a road, but this book promised too much and delivered to little. For example, when Jack Kerouac and Che Guevara are mentioned in the introduction, one could reasonably expect that they would appear elsewhere in the narrative. Maybe they wrote about a moment when they were travelling along the road? Anyway, even if Jack and Che are not particularly interesting to you, they are still far more compelling than the parade of self-regarding civil engineers, tyrannic Latin American strongmen, dishonest construction contractors, whoring laborers, and short-attention-span politicians who otherwise populate these pages. Long blockquotes from the speeches and official statements of the ever-changing parade of squabbling characters march by with mind-numbing regularity.
In addition, the initial 40 percent of the book is not actually about the attempted construction of the Pan-American Highway. First, there is a long chapter on unsuccessful attempts to build a Pan-American railroad, and then there is a comparatively short chapter on the political machinations exclusively in the US when the rise of automobile caused a demand for driveable roads. These chapters could have been cut by 80 percent -- they have little or nothing to do with the Pan-American Highway.
This book is a real disappointment.
December 25, 2018
If anyone should have liked this book, it's me. I work in trucking logistics for a railroad supplier. Why is that relevant? The first half of this book is about railroads - surprise! No mention of (automobile) highways comes in until halfway through the book. This book tries to do too much and does none of it well. I enjoy dry history books, but this book is painfully slow and unfocused. I took a break after slugging halfway through it to read another book and gave up when I tried to pick up the second half.
This book doesn't tell a story. It states facts, then restates them with endless quotes. An entire chapter sidetracks on describing the historical composition of United States' roads. Actually interesting rabbit trails such as why the Western world drives on the right hand side of the road are passed over in a single sentence. I may finish this book eventually, but I'll be in no hurry.
Copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book doesn't tell a story. It states facts, then restates them with endless quotes. An entire chapter sidetracks on describing the historical composition of United States' roads. Actually interesting rabbit trails such as why the Western world drives on the right hand side of the road are passed over in a single sentence. I may finish this book eventually, but I'll be in no hurry.
Copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
May 8, 2019
Fascinating read on the challenges and history of what feels like the most basic of engineering: road building. Months later I am still discussing pieces of this book on the intersections between civil engineering and knowledge sharing, international development, political will, and private enterprise.
My biggest issue with the book is that hundreds of years of history across two continents with hundreds of names is hard to tame. The author does try to humanize each name and organize topics, but it falls short in some moments of being truly in-depth. 1/3 of the book is on Pan-American railroads, but little is devoted to South American politics and US involvement. In taking a "neutral" engineering stance, he fails to see what companies like United Fruit or roads through deforested jungle do to the surrounding population.
My biggest issue with the book is that hundreds of years of history across two continents with hundreds of names is hard to tame. The author does try to humanize each name and organize topics, but it falls short in some moments of being truly in-depth. 1/3 of the book is on Pan-American railroads, but little is devoted to South American politics and US involvement. In taking a "neutral" engineering stance, he fails to see what companies like United Fruit or roads through deforested jungle do to the surrounding population.
April 7, 2019
An excellent story about the drive for over a century to unite the Americas by rail and then road. It was interesting to see the idealism that drove this objective for over a century. The geographic features in Central America described in the book are fascinating, especially the Sierro de la Muerta (The Mountain of Death). I was also eager to read some Latin America history and I got my fix. In addition, it interested me to see how infrastructure within the U.S. itself required almost 30-40 years of lobbying (the Good Roads movement). That’s a lesson for America’s rotting infrastructure today. All in all, the book is well-written, engaging and worth reading.
August 24, 2019
I'd like to have read somewhat more about the Darien Gap, and somewhat less about almost everything else. But I realize that might just be me.
November 14, 2020
It was a dream that appeared inevitable until suddenly it was not.
A detailed exploration of the ultimately quixotic quest to link the three Americas with a single unbroken highway, Eric Rutkow’s The Longest Line on the Map examines the 125-year dream of a continuous transportation corridor stretching from northern Alaska down to Tierra del Fuego. The result is a mix of political, transportation, and engineering history that doesn’t quite scratch the itch of a ‘modern miracle of construction’ book, but instead fits more into the category of a ploy-sci study of Pan-Americanism (with the titular highway as a recurring catalyst).
Rutkow presents an expansive view of the influences on the highway’s construction, reaching back to the ideologies of railroad tycoons, automobile lobbyists, and banana republic regimes. Rutlow offers, for example, a yeoman’s view of American foreign policy in Latin America over the course of decades and – in a pause between the railroad and roadway periods –an interesting overview of the rise of the automobile, the development of road surface materials, and the genesis of the American highway system.
But the most interesting parts of the story (for me anyway) is the construction of the highway itself. Unfortunately, the driving of iron rails and paved tarmac through dense jungle, swampy lowlands and across vertiginous mountain peaks gets a bit swallowed-up by the machinations of international diplomacy, finance, and Congressional appropriations (as much in the book as in real-life I guess). The result is less about the road and more about ‘red tape’ -- and much more about the drive through Central America than any remote stretches in either North or South America (in fact, the domestically completed spurs to either Alaska or Patagonia never even get a mention after the midway spot in the story).
The result is that The Longest Line on the Map fairly succeeds as a treatise on rise and fall of the Pan-Americanism ideal, but it’s not really a ‘construction’ book or travelogue. As much detail as there is in the story, I felt that as I turned the final page that I had indeed learned a lot about the motivations that sparked the highway’s creation, but sadly not much about the character of the road itself or the amazing places to be seen along the route.
P.S. If you are the type of person who can contentedly jump into a chapter or two of a book and still feel good about yourself – I am NOT one of those people(!) – ‘Chapter Eight: The Missing Link’ is worth a perusal. It centers on the unfinished portion of the Pan-American Highway … the ominously named ‘Darien Gap’ … and opens with the ‘weird world’ trek of the area’s ‘purportedly’ first explorer: North Carolina math-teacher-on-holiday Richard A. Tewkesbury. Although the riddle of why the Pan-American Highway remains unfinished has a largely mundane political/environmental answer, the fact that it remains a ‘road incomplete’ adds something 'a bit sexy’ to its history and mystique.
P.P.S. Since this one didn’t quite sate my 'need-to-know' craving about the Pan American Highway, I’d recommend Joel and Laura’s ‘Driving The Pan-American Highway? Here’s All You Need To Know’ as an appetizer (or dessert) to this book. It’s a clever travelogue with an enticing FAQ that begs you to read the whole thing. By the end, you'll be -- like me -- absolutely jealous of the couple's amazing trip. See https://funlifecrisis.com/pan-america...
April 14, 2019
A lot of details about people going to Congress to keep asking for money to pave the road. I was thinking it would be more about US intervention in Latin America, and while that was covered briefly at points, it was quite a bit about logistics of railroads and then roads. The book is obviously very well researched but reads more like a textbook than an engaging history.
The author wrote from a dispassionate point of view so even in parts of the book that were more interesting, he didn’t create a moving narrative (i.e. they planned to connect the road through native people’s land in the rainforest and the ethics of this were mentioned but seemed like a side note for his purposes). I also thought he’d make a stronger statement at the end about how we created this highway to connect the Americas and now we’re building walls. Again, it was mentioned, but there wasn’t as much analysis as I had hoped.
I learned some interesting facts along the was (AAA started as a lobbying group to crest highways and cyclists were also big proponents of paving roads and really started the movement towards highways as they were an elite group of white men who enjoyed the sport and had social status to lobby for road development).
There were parts that were really engaging, but most of it, like the rudimentary roads mentioned in the book, was a slog to get through. If you’re really into history, it might be an engaging read; otherwise, I’d avoid this one.
The author wrote from a dispassionate point of view so even in parts of the book that were more interesting, he didn’t create a moving narrative (i.e. they planned to connect the road through native people’s land in the rainforest and the ethics of this were mentioned but seemed like a side note for his purposes). I also thought he’d make a stronger statement at the end about how we created this highway to connect the Americas and now we’re building walls. Again, it was mentioned, but there wasn’t as much analysis as I had hoped.
I learned some interesting facts along the was (AAA started as a lobbying group to crest highways and cyclists were also big proponents of paving roads and really started the movement towards highways as they were an elite group of white men who enjoyed the sport and had social status to lobby for road development).
There were parts that were really engaging, but most of it, like the rudimentary roads mentioned in the book, was a slog to get through. If you’re really into history, it might be an engaging read; otherwise, I’d avoid this one.
December 13, 2021
This was an incredibly detailed and in-depth yet also broadly sweeping history of the Pan-American movement to link (by land) the northernmost reaches of North America to the southernmost point in South America.
As others have noted, the title is a little misleading. I picked this up to glean inspiration for imagining a road trip from the start of one end of a Pan-American route to the other end, but quickly realized that this book was not the source for whatever I had in mind. The first half of the book is about railroads and US capital projects during the Gilded Age and the early 20th century. The middle part is about the development of "good roads" in the US in the 1920s and 30s, and the last part is about the US attempts to build highways through Central America in the 20th century and the ways that global international relations either assisted or hindered the projects along the way.
Despite the loosely connected relevance of all this to the Pan-American highway, the information relating to the development of inter-continental railways, the "good roads" movement in the US, and the ultimately incomplete paved overland route was very well researched and actually taught me a lot about hemispheric relations in the 19th and 20th century, as well as about highway development in the US.
I'll be referring to this book as a source when I write about the development of highways and road stand eateries in the 1920s and 30s in the US.
As others have noted, the title is a little misleading. I picked this up to glean inspiration for imagining a road trip from the start of one end of a Pan-American route to the other end, but quickly realized that this book was not the source for whatever I had in mind. The first half of the book is about railroads and US capital projects during the Gilded Age and the early 20th century. The middle part is about the development of "good roads" in the US in the 1920s and 30s, and the last part is about the US attempts to build highways through Central America in the 20th century and the ways that global international relations either assisted or hindered the projects along the way.
Despite the loosely connected relevance of all this to the Pan-American highway, the information relating to the development of inter-continental railways, the "good roads" movement in the US, and the ultimately incomplete paved overland route was very well researched and actually taught me a lot about hemispheric relations in the 19th and 20th century, as well as about highway development in the US.
I'll be referring to this book as a source when I write about the development of highways and road stand eateries in the 1920s and 30s in the US.
November 18, 2021
During the time I spent reading this book, I had to keep convincing myself that this was worth my investment of time, as while I was informed, there was no denying that this work was just not hanging together. A big part of the problem is that "Pan-Americanism" was probably always just a glorified marketing slogan, and being a little more forthright about that reality would have served Rutkow well; not that I would accuse him of naivete. Secondly, there are really two different construction projects under consideration here; the effort to build a railroad in the 19th century, and the effort to build a commercial-grade highway in the 20th century. Both failed from issues of funding, the hostile climate, political skepticism across various countries, and the ultimately overriding issue of whether there was enough value to justify the investment.
As matters stand now, the route could be completed, if the will was there. The bottom line is that between the environmental issues, and the basic reality that Panama simply doesn't want a closer relationship with Colombia, the Darien "Gap" is not going to be closed anytime soon. That might illustrate what the ultimate problem always was with Pan-Americanism, it was mostly about linking the settler societies of North and South America, and didn't offer a lot of unalloyed value to the communities of Central America.
As matters stand now, the route could be completed, if the will was there. The bottom line is that between the environmental issues, and the basic reality that Panama simply doesn't want a closer relationship with Colombia, the Darien "Gap" is not going to be closed anytime soon. That might illustrate what the ultimate problem always was with Pan-Americanism, it was mostly about linking the settler societies of North and South America, and didn't offer a lot of unalloyed value to the communities of Central America.
December 16, 2022
I picked this one up thinking that it might be like Stephen Ambrose's "Nothing Like it in the World", or David McCullough's "The Path Between the Seas".
Boy was I disappointed.
To be fair, Eric Rutkow did a great job researching this book, and it was incredibly thorough. That said, I had two main problems with it. First, it reads like a textbook. Just incredibly dry. Second, even if it was written by a different author, the story itself is actually pretty boring. It's all just one committee meeting after another... for like 80 years. I soldiered through it hoping that we'd eventually get to some exciting parts about actually building the road, but Rutkow barely touched on it. He'd spend 30 pages talking about someone's efforts to get appropriations from Congress, and then he'd literally say in one sentence, "they then used the funds to build a 250 miles stretch of road through Panama". That's it. Then he'd go on to talk about yet another international conference. I don't think the author realizes that for most people, books about great feats of engineering are not interesting because of all of the conferences, propositions, and delegates involved. They are interesting because of the things that are built.
Boy was I disappointed.
To be fair, Eric Rutkow did a great job researching this book, and it was incredibly thorough. That said, I had two main problems with it. First, it reads like a textbook. Just incredibly dry. Second, even if it was written by a different author, the story itself is actually pretty boring. It's all just one committee meeting after another... for like 80 years. I soldiered through it hoping that we'd eventually get to some exciting parts about actually building the road, but Rutkow barely touched on it. He'd spend 30 pages talking about someone's efforts to get appropriations from Congress, and then he'd literally say in one sentence, "they then used the funds to build a 250 miles stretch of road through Panama". That's it. Then he'd go on to talk about yet another international conference. I don't think the author realizes that for most people, books about great feats of engineering are not interesting because of all of the conferences, propositions, and delegates involved. They are interesting because of the things that are built.
February 14, 2023
This was not what I was expecting. I am not sure what I was expecting, but I think I wanted to read more about the actual construction. This was more a narrative of the political brinksmanship needed to first try and build a railroad in the 19th century, and then build a road in the 20th century. I guess since funds for such a project could only come from governments, the narrative would much ado about politics.
First, it appears the government and the rich are always in cohoots. Some of the first negative press about the railroad was corrupt awarding of concessions/contracts by President Grant.
Second, building railroads in Central America was so expensive, some railroad builders founded United Fruit to fund their railroads. Of course, United Fruit would become nefarious as the toppler of Central American governments.
Third, the majority of the road in Central America was built as a war project during WWII to protect the panama canal. It was not completed and became the centerpiece of an investigation into corruption of government spending during the war.
Fourth, that the road was never completed was because of environmental lawsuits. Over the passage of time, capital obstacles were replaced by ones even harder to surmount (environmental lobbyists).
First, it appears the government and the rich are always in cohoots. Some of the first negative press about the railroad was corrupt awarding of concessions/contracts by President Grant.
Second, building railroads in Central America was so expensive, some railroad builders founded United Fruit to fund their railroads. Of course, United Fruit would become nefarious as the toppler of Central American governments.
Third, the majority of the road in Central America was built as a war project during WWII to protect the panama canal. It was not completed and became the centerpiece of an investigation into corruption of government spending during the war.
Fourth, that the road was never completed was because of environmental lawsuits. Over the passage of time, capital obstacles were replaced by ones even harder to surmount (environmental lobbyists).
March 21, 2019
I was expecting to really like this. American Canopy got high praise, and I enjoyed Earl Swift's history of the interstate highway system, The Big Roads. I expected colorful personalities, exotic Central American landscapes, tales of disaster caused by wildlife, terrain, and indigenous peoples. What I mostly got was a series of dry recitations of political disappointment interspersed with ever-larger grants of US funds, without, unless I missed it during my rapid skimming, even a grand total of how many millions it ultimately cost. Rutkow never misses an opportunity to smear a Republican, either.
Not to mention that the "longest line" still has a gap in it! The environmentalists, the agriculture department, and the drug cartels combined to thwart the last few miles. It's a classic government boondoggle, not unlike the recently abandoned California high-speed rail line, begun for hazy reasons, enriching the contractors, demagogued by the politicians, unwelcomed by the locals. So disappointing!
Not to mention that the "longest line" still has a gap in it! The environmentalists, the agriculture department, and the drug cartels combined to thwart the last few miles. It's a classic government boondoggle, not unlike the recently abandoned California high-speed rail line, begun for hazy reasons, enriching the contractors, demagogued by the politicians, unwelcomed by the locals. So disappointing!
January 15, 2021
I feel bad giving such a low rating because the author did phenomenal research for this book. Unfortunately, the intricacies of the politics of US railroad and then road building dominated this book to the point that the Pan American Highway was a distant second focus of the book. I was especially disappointed to see so little discussion of South America throughout the book.
I did enjoy several of the side notes along the way, including the origins of United Fruit as a source of revenue for railroad construction and the discussion of road building during the drafting of the Constitution. The book seems to lose itself, though, with really only the last third discussing the history of the highway. A valiant effort, certainly, but not what I had hoped it would be.
I did enjoy several of the side notes along the way, including the origins of United Fruit as a source of revenue for railroad construction and the discussion of road building during the drafting of the Constitution. The book seems to lose itself, though, with really only the last third discussing the history of the highway. A valiant effort, certainly, but not what I had hoped it would be.
June 22, 2019
Nibbled away at this for several weeks. I suppose I was expecting more of an "armchair travel" book, but this turned out to be a full-on history text that I think was originally a PhD thesis. Interesting, but not quite what I had in mind. Also, significant chunks of the book are not about the Pan-American Highway at all: the first third of the book is on the Pan-American railroad effort, and another lengthy interlude is on U.S. road development. Another gripe would be that the book is almost exclusively focused on the Mexico-Panama portion (the "Quest to Link the Americas" in the sub-title). There is very little on South America, and virtually nothing on Canada/Alaska.
October 28, 2022
Long and detailed history of the Pan American Highway through a century and a half of visionaries, politics, wars, terrain challenges. First by rail, then with the advent of cars, this highway is still not complete through the dense jungle of the Darian Gap (something I was only aware of a few years ago).
Such an ambitious undertaking and at breath taking expense and human cost. I found myself going in and out of engagement with so many players in the works, but appreciated covering historic events and people that was the backdrop to it's implementation. My personal takeaway is that not everywhere is a place for cars, and some places are best left wild.
Such an ambitious undertaking and at breath taking expense and human cost. I found myself going in and out of engagement with so many players in the works, but appreciated covering historic events and people that was the backdrop to it's implementation. My personal takeaway is that not everywhere is a place for cars, and some places are best left wild.
August 30, 2020
This was a fascinating, if dense, book. While the title implies it is about the Pan-American highway, the story actually begins with the Pan-American railway.
It took me months to get through the book, which mirrored the incredible struggles by those trying to link the Americas through railways and highways. It’s not that it wasn’t interesting- it’s thorough and captivating. It’s just full - thick with countries and politics and geography and racism and engineering and war and revolutions covering 100 years.
I’ll admit, though. I kinda wanna drive to Panama now.
It took me months to get through the book, which mirrored the incredible struggles by those trying to link the Americas through railways and highways. It’s not that it wasn’t interesting- it’s thorough and captivating. It’s just full - thick with countries and politics and geography and racism and engineering and war and revolutions covering 100 years.
I’ll admit, though. I kinda wanna drive to Panama now.
November 26, 2022
This's a history of the Pan-American Railroad and Pan-American highway, both the dream and the fight to build the reality, from its first conception in the mid-1800's to the present.
Unfortunately, I simply lost interest not quite midway through the book, sometime in the late 1800's when revolutions in Central America were stopping the hoped-for southward extension of the railroad. I think what squelched my interest was the ever-shifting cast of characters combined with the book's focus on high finance and politics more than the ground-level difficulties of construction.
Unfortunately, I simply lost interest not quite midway through the book, sometime in the late 1800's when revolutions in Central America were stopping the hoped-for southward extension of the railroad. I think what squelched my interest was the ever-shifting cast of characters combined with the book's focus on high finance and politics more than the ground-level difficulties of construction.
January 21, 2025
Its a decent book. I enjoy books that chronicle a major project over time, and it was cool to see the move from the pan-American railway to the pan-American highway, as well as the different motivations, from commerce to defense to anti-communism, that pushed the development of the route. But the actual events of history were stop-and-start, leading to a stop-and-start book that was hard to get into. Not really the author's fault.
January 7, 2019
I saw this book on NetGalley and thought it would be an interesting read. I am not a geography or history scholar just a person that is interested in historical facts and stories. I think as such, this book was just a bit above my head. It was hard to read and slow going for me. There would probably be others more suited to reading and enjoying it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews