Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation

Amazon.com
Begun in 1817 and completed in 1825, the Erie Canal stretches 363 miles across upstate New York from Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River. A stunning achievement, the canal was hacked through a densely forested pass in the Appalachian Mountains using only axes, shovels, low-grade explosive power, beasts of burden, and some ingenious devices. The engineers and workers created locks, bypassed rapids and waterfalls, and adjusted to countless changes in elevation. When the canal was completed it became one of the wonders of the world. But the canal was much more than a spectacular construction project; it also served to bind a young United States to itself and the rest of the world in one bold stroke. In this thoroughly absorbing book, Peter Bernstein describes in vivid detail how the Erie Canal helped to shape the United States into a great nation by connecting the eastern seaboard and western expanses of America, as well as propel the Industrial Revolution and stimulate global trade, economics, and immigration. It was so important to the development of the U.S., argues Bernstein, that without the canal the detached western territories "would in all likelihood have broken away" and created another, if not several, separate countries. Manifest Destiny would have been denied.

ANNOTATION

"The account of how the Erie Canal forever changed the course of American history"--Provided by publisher.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"The history of the Erie Canal is a story of American ingenuity. A great project that Thomas Jefferson judged to be "little short of madness," and that others compared with going to the moon, soon turned into one of the most successful and influential public investments in American history." "In Wedding of the Waters, best-selling author Peter L. Bernstein recounts the canal's creation within the larger tableau of a youthful America in the first quarter-century of the 1800s. Leaders of the fledgling nation had quickly recognized that the Appalachian mountain range was a formidable obstacle to uniting the Atlantic states with the vast lands of the west. A pathway for commerce as well as travel was critical to the security and expansion of the Revolution's unprecedented achievement." Bernstein examines the social ramifications, political squabbles, and economic risks and returns of this mammoth project. He goes on to demonstrate how the canal's creation helped bind the western settlers in the new lands to their fellow Americans in the original colonies, knitted the sinews of the American industrial revolution, and even influenced profound economic change in Europe.

FROM THE CRITICS

Jonathan Yardley - The Washington Post

A great deal has been written about the canal but relatively little in recent years, so Wedding of the Waters is a valuable history lesson for people -- i.e., most of us -- who have forgotten about the canal or never knew about it in the first place. Bernstein, an economist who has written a number of books that attempt with considerable success to address complex subjects for a general readership, gives the story of the canal's conception and construction all the drama it deserves, and -- as is suggested by the quotation above -- puts it into larger perspective. Almost certainly it is no exaggeration to say that the United States wouldn't be what it is today had it not been for the Erie Canal; it was the Interstate Highway System of the 19th century, and its impact was comparable if not even greater.

The New Yorker

In the early eighteen-hundreds, the wild idea began to circulate of a man-made waterway that would connect Lake Erie to the Hudson River. At the time, canals were an exciting technology. George Washington was fascinated by them, and spent his last years attempting to tame the Potomac. But geography favored New York, where the Mohawk River Valley offered a natural cut in the mountains. Bernstein’s lively account covers the political debates that surrounded the canal’s financing and choice of route, and also the tenacity of the local workers who completed the project. The inauguration, in 1825, of the Erie Canal sparked a cultural revolution as interior cities became port towns. The number of patents increased, suggesting an intellectual awakening, but there were also fears that mobility could lead to moral decline, and one paper denounced the canal as “the Big Ditch of Iniquity.”

Publishers Weekly

First proposed in 1808 and completed 17 years later, the Erie Canal was the first great feat of macroengineering undertaken by the infant American republic. As economic consultant Bernstein (Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk) shows in his eloquent account, the canal-stretching 363 miles from the Hudson River to Lake Erie-reshaped not only the economic landscape of the eastern seaboard but the political and social landscape as well. Bernstein vividly relates the political battles fought over the high-priced project and the work of surveyors, engineers and laborers. The canal was in particular an economic engine for New York, bringing down the cost of shipping goods between Buffalo and Manhattan by a whopping 90%. This in turn inspired the development of farms throughout the Great Lakes area and the Upper Midwest. At the same time, prices for farm commodities in Manhattan and other eastern cities dropped steadily, facilitating the growth of industrial workforces and a dramatic shift in the urban-to-rural ratio toward the cities. Bernstein does a first-rate job of examining the social, political and economic impact of the canal both as a construction project and as a viable path linking the Atlantic seaboard with the American interior. 20 b&w illus. not seen by PW. (Jan.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Bernstein, an economist notable for his popular writing (e.g., the best-selling Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk), links technological feats and bodies of water in the spirit of storytellers David McCullough (on the Panama Canal) and Ken Burns (on the Brooklyn Bridge). With all the enthusiasm of a young scholar, Bernstein traces the story of the Erie Canal by focusing on the impact of personalities such as Scottish surveyor Cadwallader Colden, Irish mechanic Christopher Colles, and popular politician and promoter De Witt Clinton. Bernstein's theme is that the waterway was pivotal in constructing an east-west axis for the movement of goods, people, ideas, and, ultimately, economic growth and globalization. The influx of New Englanders and New Yorkers into such cities as Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Chicago led to urbanization and industrialization, which put the North squarely ahead of the South by the time of the Civil War. This predominantly descriptive text is supplemented by annotations and a bibliography, while eyewitness accounts of what canal travel was actually like add considerably to this handsome book's appeal. Recommended for general audiences. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/04.]-Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews