Empire Express - David Haward Bain Part I: 1845-57: A Procession
of Dreamers
1: "For All the Human Family"
2: "Who Can Oppose Such a Work?"
3: "I Must Walk Toward Oregon"
4: "The Great Object for Which We Were Created"
5: "An Uninhabited and Dreary Waste"
Part II: 1860-61: Union, Disunion, Incorporation
6: "Raise the Money and I Will Build Your Road"
7: "There Comes Crazy Judah"
8: "The Marks Left by the Donner Party"
9: "The Most Difficult Country Ever Conceived"
10: "We Have Drawn the Elephant"
Part III: 1863: Last of the Dreamers
11: "Speculation Is as Fatal to It as Secession"
12: "I Have Had a Big Row and Fight"
Part IV: 1864: Struggle for Momentum
13: "First Dictator of the Railroad World"
14: "Dancing with a Whirlwind"
15: "Trustees of the Bounty of Congress"
Part V: 1865: The Losses Mount
16: "The Great Cloud Darkening the Land"
17: "If We Can Save Our Scalps"
18: "I Hardly Expect to Live to See It Completed"
Part VI: 1866: Eyeing the Main Chance
19: "Vexation, Trouble, and Continual Hindrance"
20: "The Napoleon of Railways"
21: "We Swarmed the Mountains with Men"
22: "Until They Are Severely Punished"
Part VII: 1867: Hell on Wheels
23: "Nitroglycerine Tells"
24: "Our Future Power and Influence"
25: "They All Died in Their Boots"
26: "There Are Only Five of Us"
Part VIII: 1868: Going for Broke
27: "More Hungry Men in Congress"
28: "Bring on Your Eight Thousand Men"
29: "We Are in a Terrible Sweat"
30: "A Man for Breakfast Every Morning"
Part IX: 1869: Battleground and Meeting Ground
31: "A Resistless Power"
32: "We Have Got Done Praying"
Part X: 1872-73: Scandals, Scapegoats, and Dodgers
Epilogue: "Trial of the Innocents"
Notes
Bibliography
Index
David Haward Bain is the author of four previous works of nonfiction, including Empire Express and Sitting in Darkness, which received a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award. His articles and essays have appeared in Smithsonian, American Heritage, Kenyon Review, and Prairie Schooner, and he reviews regularly for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and Newsday. He is a teacher at Middlebury College and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
"Rich with scandal, tragedy, and visionary characters".-- SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Uniting the country by a transcontinental railroad had a special resonance for the generation that had recently fought the Civil War. Bain's comprehensive study starts with the visionaries who conceived the idea during the two decades before the war (a mere 40 years after the Lewis and Clark expedition). As Bain (Whose Woods These Are) explains, the dreamers gave way to the engineers and entrepreneurs who fixed the route, assembled financing, drafted a work force and launched the two lines toward the eventual meeting point at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869. The story alternates between the Union Pacific driving west from Omaha and the Central Pacific blasting through the mountains from California. About a score of the principal players appear throughout the book, their triumphs and depredations interwoven in a richly (sometimes overly) detailed composition. Bain specifies his heroes and villains, and does not neglect the political fixers who infested Washington, D.C., emptying their satchels of money as they circulated through Congress. The writing is particularly evocative as Bain examines the impact of the railroad on the Plains Indians, whose traditional way of life was eradicated by the line. Bain also deals knowledgeably with the imported Chinese workers, the "Celestials," who were unsurpassed in their tenacity and work ethic. Displaying energetic research and enthusiasm for the subject matter, Bain brings the linking of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the era that produced it, back to life. Maps. History Book Club selection; BOMC selection; 8-city author tour. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
"Rich with scandal, tragedy, and visionary characters".
-- SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
