The Panama Canal is one of the most extraordinary feats of engineering in modern times. Cutting across the narrow isthmus that connects the Atlantic and Pacific, it is only 50 miles long, yet the challenges it posed for its original builders were almost insurmountable.
Now, in 2016, the canal is reopening in its new, expanded form, with the heady aim of ‘transforming Panama into a First World country’. It is a big claim, and a huge gamble – over $5 billion has been invested in the scheme to widen the canal to enable the passage of today’s monster container ships. But will an increase in traffic necessarily follow? What are the long-term environmental impacts? And will a rival canal in Nicaragua soon render it obsolete?
Here, in The Great Canal Gamble, Mick Webb traces the colourful story of the canal from Columbus’s original idea 500 years ago, through charismatic Spanish explorer Balboa’s navigation of the route; the Scottish Darién disaster (2,000 lives lost and Scotland nearly bankrupted); the bizarrely named War of Jenkins’ Ear; the nineteenth-century gold rush; and the hubristic efforts of ‘Le Grand Français’, Ferdinand de Lesseps, to overcome yellow fever, financial fraud, engineering errors, gruelling terrain and a final death toll of 21,000 in the first serious attempt to build the canal. It was not until 1914 that the Americans eventually overcame the logistical challenges: in a typical irony, the completion of the canal – originally envisaged as a force for world peace – was overshadowed by the outbreak of World War One.
Exploring the canal’s significance – political, economic, military and social – and its key role in Panama’s fortunes, The Great Canal Gamble shows how it epitomises the best (and some of the worst) aspects of human ambition.
Now, in 2016, the canal is reopening in its new, expanded form, with the heady aim of ‘transforming Panama into a First World country’. It is a big claim, and a huge gamble – over $5 billion has been invested in the scheme to widen the canal to enable the passage of today’s monster container ships. But will an increase in traffic necessarily follow? What are the long-term environmental impacts? And will a rival canal in Nicaragua soon render it obsolete?
Here, in The Great Canal Gamble, Mick Webb traces the colourful story of the canal from Columbus’s original idea 500 years ago, through charismatic Spanish explorer Balboa’s navigation of the route; the Scottish Darién disaster (2,000 lives lost and Scotland nearly bankrupted); the bizarrely named War of Jenkins’ Ear; the nineteenth-century gold rush; and the hubristic efforts of ‘Le Grand Français’, Ferdinand de Lesseps, to overcome yellow fever, financial fraud, engineering errors, gruelling terrain and a final death toll of 21,000 in the first serious attempt to build the canal. It was not until 1914 that the Americans eventually overcame the logistical challenges: in a typical irony, the completion of the canal – originally envisaged as a force for world peace – was overshadowed by the outbreak of World War One.
Exploring the canal’s significance – political, economic, military and social – and its key role in Panama’s fortunes, The Great Canal Gamble shows how it epitomises the best (and some of the worst) aspects of human ambition.
