A thrilling tale of exploration, conquest, money, politics, and medicine.

The Panama Canal was the costliest undertaking in human history. It literally required moving mountains, breaking the back of the great range that connects North and South America. Begun by the French in 1880, its successful completion in 1914 by the Americans marked the end of the Victorian Age and the beginning of the “American Century.”

The building of the Panama Canal was a project whose gestation spanned hundreds of years. Columbus himself searched for a way to get to the Pacific across the narrow isthmus of Central America. For centuries, monarchs, presidents, businessmen, and explorers all struggled to find such a passage, knowing that whoever controlled it would exert unsurpassed control over global trade, and therefore the fate of nations.

The first history of this mighty achievement in nearly thirty years, Panama Fever draws on diaries, memoirs, letters, and other contemporary accounts, bringing the experience of those who built the canal vividly to life. The massive project riveted public attention: “Panama Fever” spread throughout the Western world. Politicians and businessmen engaged in high-stakes international diplomacy in order to influence its location, path, ownership, and construction. Meanwhile, ditch-diggers, machinists, drivers, engineers, and foremen from all over the world rushed to take advantage of high wages and the chance to be a part of history.

But the grim reality of Panama (searing heat, torrential rains, fatal mud slides, and malarial mosquitoes) soon caught up with them. More than 25,000 of those who enthusiastically signed on as workers succumbed to dysentery, yellow fever, and malaria, giving a fatal twist to the meaning of “Panama Fever.” The truly horrific toll unleashed a second race to find a cure so the canal could be completed. The discoveries of the heroic doctors who battled these diseases would lead to a sea change in the way infectious diseases were treated, thus paving the way for the tremendous medical advances of the twentieth century.

Filled with remarkable characters, including Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, and Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French genius who built the Suez Canal and almost snatched Panama out from under American control, Panama Fever is an epic historical adventure that shows how a small but fiercely contested strip of land in a largely unknown Central American nation suddenly made the world a smaller place and launched the era of American global dominance.

"Parker (Monte Cassino: The Hardest Fought Battle of World War II) begins this engrossing narrative of the construction of what Theodore Roosevelt called 'one of the great works of the world' well before the 20th century: everyone from Benjamin Franklin to Goethe was interested in a trans-isthmus canal, and one of the most arresting sections of the book chronicles the failed French efforts, in the late 1800s, to build one. Roosevelt then called for the building of a canal in his first address to Congress. The project faced countless challenges, but Parker is especially deft when addressing the racism that magnified already appalling working conditions. Those in charge didn't want to hire white American workers, who were too expensive and too unionized (though later, whites were hired), and the discussions about workers became racialized. The 'native Isthmian' was too 'indolent,' but black workers from the British West Indies were viewed as 'cheap and expendable.' U.S. authorities discriminated racially, paying workers unequally and trying, in general, to prevent the 'intermingling of the races.' This is not a narrow history of mechanical engineering but a well-researched and satisfying account of imperial vision and social inequity. Illus., maps." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The Panama Canal was controversial from its birth. Theodore Roosevelt considered his role in the affair the great work of his presidency. "I took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me," he boasted. The congressional debate continued long past the time Roosevelt left office, eventually producing an apology to Colombia for the president's high-handedness... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) and a conscience payment critics dubbed "canalimony."

This hardly ended the controversy. Panamanians railed at the severing of their country by the American zone and periodically protested, sometimes violently. Riots during the 1960s prompted Lyndon Johnson to reopen discussions regarding the canal. When these discussions culminated in the 1970s with Jimmy Carter's proposal to transfer the canal to Panama, Republicans and other conservatives castigated it as a giveaway. "We built it! We paid for it!" Ronald Reagan thundered during his campaign for the 1976 Republican nomination for president. "And we should keep it!"

The two books here neatly bracket the controversy. Matthew Parker, a London-based author who was born in Central America and spent part of his boyhood in the West Indies, commences "Panama Fever" with the explorers Christopher Columbus and Vasco Nunez de Balboa and traces the tortuous — and often torturous — efforts by various parties to pierce Panama and connect the Atlantic and the Pacific. The California Gold Rush made Panama an issue for the United States; with large populations now on both coasts, the American government naturally sought a convenient way to connect them.

But the French got there first. The conquest of Suez, where the greatest previous canal in history opened in 1869, inspired Ferdinand de Lesseps and his sponsors to think they could repeat their triumph in Panama. The jungles and mountains of Central America, however, made de Lesseps long for the level sands of Suez. For more than a decade, the French battled heat, humidity, rain, mud, insects, snakes, disease, political upheaval and corruption before finally admitting defeat.

"Panama Fever" is the first major account of the canal's history since David McCullough's 1977 "The Path Between the Seas." Parker's version compares quite favorably with McCullough's as a narrative, and it is more international in outlook and pays closer attention to the travails of the thousands of workers who toiled on the project. Parker is halfway through his book before Theodore Roosevelt gallops onto the scene along with a cast of intriguers, lobbyists and others whose interests bore a merely incidental relation to those of the United States.

Two routes across Central America appeared feasible: one in Panama, at that time part of Colombia; the other in Nicaragua. Promoters of the rival paths battled furiously for the favor of Washington. Roosevelt chose the Panama route and offered to lease the canal zone from Colombia. But the Colombian government rejected the offer, and Roosevelt looked for more cooperative partners.

He didn't have to look far. Panama had never rested comfortably under Colombian control; during the previous half-century, inhabitants of the isthmus had made several attempts at secession. Roosevelt signaled to a likely cabal that he would support another breakaway effort. The revolt commenced in November 1903; within 24 hours an American warship landed marines and guaranteed the success of the rebellion. Roosevelt extended diplomatic recognition to the new Panamanian government, which returned the favor by delivering the canal zone Roosevelt coveted.

Adam Clymer's subject in "Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch" is only partly Panama. Clymer previously covered Washington for The New York Times, and he's still trying to explain the rise of the Republican right. He contends that the idea of transferring the canal to Panamanian control provided conservatives a made-to-order stick with which to beat their opponents. Reagan employed it against Gerald Ford in 1976 and scored a surprise victory in the North Carolina primary. He didn't unseat Ford that year, but he made himself the Republican favorite for 1980, when he did oust another incumbent, Jimmy Carter.

Clymer's causal chain stretches far and sometimes thin. "If he had lost North Carolina, Reagan would never have come close to Ford," Clymer says. "If he had soldiered on anyhow, he would have been widely seen as a nagging irrelevancy. Then, if Reagan had emerged from 1976 as a badly defeated candidate, I do not think he would have tried again in 1980." Clymer concedes that there was more to the conservative movement than Reagan. "But it would have had to wait more than four years to triumph."

Perhaps. Yet other developments of the late 1970s — the stagflation of the economy, the seizure of American hostages in Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — made Carter all but un-re-electable, Panama or no Panama. Clymer is on firmer ground, and provides fascinating detail, in explaining how several conservative candidates for Congress successfully leveraged the canal against their more liberal opponents.

As for the canal itself, time vindicated Carter and the other advocates of transfer. The gradual transition to Panamanian operation of the canal proceeded without incident. Conservatives in America found other causes. The final step in the transfer of authority, in December 1999, was overshadowed by the end-of-millennium excitement, leaving many Americans to wonder what all the Panama fuss had been about.

H.W. Brands teaches history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of "The Age of Gold" and "TR," among other books.

Reviewed by H.W. Brands, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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The story of the Panama Canal is like a fun-house mirror reflection of the extremes of colonial mentality. On the one hand there was a high-handed usurpation of a sovereign country, racism, cruelty, graft, greed and deceit. On the other there was a great feat of engineering and the conquest of malaria. Matthew Parker has combed the records to relate both sides of this gripping true drama. This is a popular history with some endnotes and a number of photos of the canal and those who were responsible for building it. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"An epic tale of human folly and endeavour, beautifully told and researched." —John Le Carré

“Few great feats of engineering have been steeped in as much passion and tragedy as the Panama Canal, and no one tells the story better than Matthew Parker. Through meticulous research and vivid, vigorous prose, Parker has captured the frenzy surrounding the canal and the heartbreaking toll that it took on the thousands of men who set off like soldiers to Panama’s ‘Fever Coast,’ never to return.”

 - Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey

 

“An epic tale of human folly and endeavor, beautifully told and researched.”

- John le Carré

“[An] engrossing narrative of what Theodore Roosevelt called ‘one of the great works of the world.’”

- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A tale of exploration, conquest, money, politics, and medicine, "Panama Fever" charts the challenges that marked the long, labyrinthine road to the building of one of the greatest engineering feats in human history.

MATTHEW PARKER is the author of The Battle of Britain and Monte Cassino. He lives in London, England.