Nothing Like It In The World
"Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad - the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks."--BOOK JACKET.
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2recommend
12mentions
3people
2009–2026years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- 1. It finished the railroad in 1869. 1873 was four years later. 1893 was 24 years later - a generation.
2. Check out "Nothing Like It in the World" by Ambrose.
- SpaceX is building a railroad to the solar system. It will change everything, and quickly.
> The railroad was bringing people to a land that was already successfully settled by neolithic peoples tens of thousands of years earlier.
That's what people thought before the railroad was completed.
See "Nothing Like It In the World" by Stephen Ambrose:
https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1...
- Since Chernow never explained this, I suspect he just couldn't break free of the conventional view.
For example, in the chapter on the anti-trust trial, Chernow concluded that Rockefeller had an unstoppable monopoly that needed the government to reign it in (the conventional view). Yet in the text he wrote that throughout the trial, Standard Oil's market share steadily declined and Rockefeller was unable to stem the retreat. There was no explanation of the discrepancy.
A different take on this is "Nothing Like It In The World" by Ambrose. It's about the building of the first continental railroad. Ambrose writes in it that he fully embraced the conventional view of it, but his research for the book turned everything on its head, and he came out of the experience with a very different view.
I do have copy of Chernow's tome on Hamilton, but haven't got around to reading it yet.
- Oh what the heck. I have a book for you, "Titan" by Chernow. You'll like it because Chernow tries to paint all the left wing tropes on Rockefeller. Unfortunately, his narrative facts contradict his conclusions.
After you've read it, come back and enlighten me on how "highly regulated" the oil business was in Rockefeller's days.
Another gem is "Nothing Like It In The World" by Ambrose. Ambrose also approached the topic with the usual left-wing bias, but his research completely upended his narrative. Unlike Chernow, he wrote a nice mea culpa about his transformation engendered by the facts.
"Empire of the Summer Moon" is another one that will challenge your point of view.
- If I could only remember them all!
If you ask me at different times I'll give different answers, but some are just on top:
War of the Worlds, Lord of the Rings, The Mote in God's Eye, Replay, Earth Abides, 20000 Leagues Under The Sea, 2001, Nothing Like It In The World, Reach For The Sky, Winnie The Pooh, The Last of the Mohicans, The Hunt for Red October, With the Old Breed, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman, Moby Dick, Shogun, Romeo and Juliet
I envy anyone reading these for the first time!
- "At the tunnels, especially Summit Tunnel, the Chinese were using great amounts of black powder, up to five hundred kegs a day."
"The CP found that, when they got to drilling holes of fifteen to eighteen inches into the granite, poured in the liquid nitroglycerin, capped the hole with a plug, and fired it with a percussion cap, the nitroglycerin did a far better job than powder. The work progressed at nearly double the speed, and the granite was broken into far smaller pieces. But the accidents proved too much. In one, after a number of charges had been set off simultaneously, a Chinese worker hit a charge of nitro that hadn't exploded with his pick. It exploded and killed him and the others working near that spot. Strobridge declared, "Bury that stuff." Crocker said to get it out of there. And even though Nobel perfected dynamite in 1866, it was never tested or used by the CP. In 1867, the CP ignored the dangers and did make and use its own nitroglycerin, but except at Summit Tunnel did not make a practice of it."
"Nothing Like It In The World", Ambrose, pg. 200-201
I'm not just quoting the book, I read the whole thing. It's really a great story.
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