Rating: 5 out of 5
This is an incredibly detailed overview of the building of the Panama Canal. In broad terms, it confirms the vision of the French as inept and incapable of taking on the project while the Americans manage to lever their skillset to pull off the works. There is of course a whole lot more nuance and a fair number of characters who pass through the story – many of whom should belong in the category of very corrupt people indeed.
Let’s start with Ferdinand de Lesseps and his inordinate wish to create a sea level canal, like he had done at Suez. Not that the choice of Panama as the site of the canal could be justified on geographical or natural terms, and Mr McCullough’s narrative goes through the many expeditions that were sent there to do their best in understanding the tropical jungle. In simple terms, Panama should not have been the site of the canal, but de Lesseps forced the organizations that were interested in the canal to go through with it.
The rest finds us looking at how a company could be run – and how a specific company was run. The numerous failures of management as carried out by de Lesseps and his son are detailed in great depth, though the main question – in fact the only important question for a CEO, i.e., how to deploy available funds – would have been sufficient to avert the crisis that finally struck the French.
And, yet, despite the negativity, what comes through is how much they achieved with what they had and under which poor management. Had the headquarters been as capable as the (in later day terminology) ‘boots on the ground,’ they could have well succeeded.
In the following chapters, what strikes one is the willingness that the existing large shareholders had in allowing the small French stockholders to perish utterly while being saved by the US government. That the government allowed this is a blot on the US negotiators who agreed to those terms, but it again highlights how one should always check why someone is pushing a specific story.
In a change, the chapters detailing American construction of the canal generally proceed without many troubles. Sure, there were some topics which offered controversy to the committee in charge and the chief engineer, but in broad terms the project proceeded superbly.
Overall, I really enjoyed this narrative and I think it offers quite a few lessons for the prospective reader.
