The Path Between the Seas

David McCullough tells the Panama Canal's story as one continuous account rather than two separate projects: the French effort that collapses into disease and financial ruin, and the American campaign that finishes what the French started. The failure of the French effort was real, and so was the ambition behind it; the book gives both their weight.

McCullough builds the book out of the accounts of the people who were actually there, so it sets the personal cost of the project — the disease, the isolation, the deaths — alongside the diplomacy and engineering that eventually solved it. Jimmy Carter later said the treaties handing the canal back to Panama would not have passed the Senate without this book, and McCullough noted that both sides of the debate quoted it.

It runs nearly 700 pages, and it earns the length rather than padding it out — this is the book for readers who want the full diplomatic and engineering history, not a condensed version. Anyone wanting a quick account of how the canal got built should look elsewhere; this one takes its time.