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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by David McCullough, 1977, Simon and Schuster, New York<\/p>\n
This is a fabulous book.\u00c2\u00a0 Although it is somewhat detailed and requires a bit of fortitude to read it through, the book chronicles one of the greatest American accomplishments ever.\u00c2\u00a0 The story begins with the efforts of the French and Ferdinand de Lesseps (the builder of the Suez Canal) and their failure and ends with the opening of the canal in August of 1914.\u00c2\u00a0 McCullough writes a great deal about the background and personal characteristics of the individuals involved;\u00c2\u00a0the reader can readily detect the attributes of each individual that contributed to either success or failure.<\/p>\n
One of the more interesting facets of the story was the lessening and, in some cases, the elimination of various diseases in the Canal Zone.\u00c2\u00a0 This was an absolute prerequisite to the success of the Americans.\u00c2\u00a0 The discovery that yellow fever and malaria was caused by mosquitoes at the time was a key element.\u00c2\u00a0 Even though the discovery was well documented in the medical journals, however, there were quite a number of individuals who discounted the theory and continued to believe these diseases were caused by “bad air”.\u00c2\u00a0 We have significant parallels today in our society who are quick to discount scientific theory in such areas as climate change and evolution.<\/p>\n
Another interesting area was the extent of the changes in technology in a very short period of time that would have made the building of the canal all but impossible even ten years earlier.\u00c2\u00a0 The development of electricity and steel metalurgy in those ten years was signfiicant.\u00c2\u00a0 At about the time the locks were being built the first factories in the U.S. were being electrified.\u00c2\u00a0 The advances in technology that were employed in the design of the canal were remarkable.As we are planning to take a cruise to Panama next winter, the reading of this book will provide a great deal of insight.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The book was very readable and interesting to me.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by David McCullough, 1977, Simon and Schuster, New York This is a fabulous book.\u00c2\u00a0 Although it is somewhat detailed and requires a bit of fortitude to read it through, the book chronicles one of the greatest American accomplishments ever.\u00c2\u00a0 The …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20,16],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-four-star","tag-history","tag-non-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1830,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions\/1830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}