Hell's Gorge
The Battle to Build the Panama Canal
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cornerstone
Published:6th Mar '08
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The brilliantly ambitious, epic story of a thirty-year battle against the elements, disease, impossible terrain and massive financial collapse to create one of the most extraordinary engineering feats in world history.
Traces a heroic dream that spanned four centuries: to build a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This book explores the fierce geo-political struggle behind the heroic vision of the canal, and the immense engineering and medical battles that were fought.
2014 is the 100-year-anniversary of the panama canal: one of the most extraordinary engineering feats in world history.
Hell's Gorge traces a heroic dream that spanned four centuries: to build a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.The human cost was immense: in appalling working conditions and amid epidemics of fever, tens of thousands perished fighting the jungle, swamps and mountains of Panama, a scale of attrition comparable to many great battles.
Matthew Parker explores the fierce geo-political struggle behind the heroic vision of the canal, and the immense engineering and medical battles that were fought. But he also weaves in the stories of the ordinary men and women who worked on the canal, to evoke everyday life on the construction and depict the battle on the ground deep in 'Hell's Gorge'. Using diaries, memoirs, contemporary newspapers and previously unseen private letters, he draws a vivid picture of the heart-breaking struggle on the Isthmus, in particular that of the British West Indians who made up the majority of the canal workforce.
Hell's Gorge is a tale of politics, finance, press manipulation, scandal and intrigue, populated by a dazzling cast of idealists and bullies, heroes and conmen. But it is also a moving tribute to the 'Forgotten Silvermen', so many of whom died to fulfil the centuries-old canal dream.
An epic tale of human folly and endeavour, beautifully told and researched -- John le Carré
Matthew Parker has picked a fascinating subject and written a book worthy of it ... It is peopled with a host of characters, some heroic, others corrupt, almost all out of the ordinary. There isn't a dull page -- Allan Massie * Daily Telegraph *
Parker's epic story, from the 18th century to the present day, is awesome * The Times *
Parker has written the Panama story for a new generation. He quotes extensively from letters and diaries of ordinary workers writing home to their families. And it is their heartfelt views on the conditions in which they lived and worked that really bring this book to life * The Economist *
Parker's great forte in Panama Fever is to bring this complex story to life through a succession of vivid characters * Sunday Telegraph *
Parker guides readers through the complicated story with a sure sense of both the larger narrative and the telling detail * Sunday Times *
Excellent... the story is an epic one, and Parker has brilliantly done justice to every aspect of a complex episode -- Frank McLynn * Independent *
The essence of Parker's rather remarkable achievement in this altogether entertaining history is to show just how much more than an engineering triumph the construction of the canal really was... This is exemplary history, vigorously told with a respect for complexity that enriches rather than obscures the pleasure of a great story * LA Times *
The extraordinary story of western man's compulsion to wrestle with nature in the central American swamps and rainforests * The Guardian *
Matthew Parker intertwines the various strands of the story - personal and national, political and financial, geographical and technological - with finesse ... Best of all, his prose somehow manages to infect the reader with the Panama fever itself. It is no mean achievement * The Spectator *
ISBN: 9780099484332
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 29mm
Weight: 331g
464 pages