A fresh, well-documented account of U.S.–Latin American relations.
Drawing on archival sources and more than two dozen oral histories, Rutkow (History/Univ. of Central Florida; American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation, 2012) offers a richly detailed examination of efforts to build a highway from Alaska to the tip of Argentina.
Although there are many histories of the construction of the Panama Canal and the nation’s highway system, the author fills a gap by recounting the political visions, economic hopes, and engineering challenges that played out during nearly 100 years, beginning with the dream of an intercontinental railway. Among the champions of that dream was a former consul to Buenos Aires, the indefatigable Hinton Rowan Helper—one of many colorful characters in Rutkow’s well-populated narrative—who, in the mid-1800s, imagined an alternative to dangerous, unreliable sea travel: 10,000 miles of trains. In 1890, the Intercontinental Railway Commission was established, though with scant participation from Latin American countries. But by 1903, Mexico had begun construction, and small lines linked agricultural zones in Central America. Captains of industry—Carnegie and Gould among them—took notice: The north-south railroad, the Wall Street Journal reported, “has commended itself to the wisdom of many who have studied it on its economic, engineering, and financial sides.” World War I underscored the benefit of hemispheric connections when trade with European markets was impeded. With the expansion of the U.S. highway system, however, and the rise of a new “motoring generation” supplied by influential car manufacturers, the vision of a railroad transformed into a highway network that would foster “closer and more harmonious relations” between the nations of the Western world. After World War II, the road became seen as a “highway of freedom” to prevent the spread of communism in Latin America. Building a highway across difficult terrain proved both dangerous and expensive, but by 1963, the Pan-American highway opened—with the exception of one 400-mile gap of impenetrable jungle.
A fresh, well-documented account of U.S.–Latin American relations.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0390-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
HISTORY | MODERN | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
BOOK REVIEW
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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