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Summary
Summary
"Simon Winchester never disappoints, and The Men Who United the States is a lively and surprising account of how this sprawling piece of geography became a nation. This is America from the ground up. Inspiring and engaging." --Tom Brokaw
Simon Winchester, acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings.
How did America become "one nation, indivisible"? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America's most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, such as Lewis and Clark and the leaders of the Great Surveys; the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph and the powerful civil engineer behind the Interstate Highway System. He treks vast swaths of territory, from Pittsburgh to Portland, Rochester to San Francisco, Seattle to Anchorage, introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today's United States.
Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree. Featuring 32 illustrations throughout the text, The Men Who United the States is a fresh look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together.
Author Notes
Simon Winchester was born in London, England on September 28, 1944. He read geology at St. Catherine's College, Oxford. After graduation in 1966, he joined a Canadian mining company and worked as field geologist in Uganda. The following year he decided to become a journalist. His first reporting job was for The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1969, he joined The Guardian and was named Britain's Journalist of the Year in 1971. He also worked for the Daily Mail and the Sunday Times before becoming a freelancer.
He is the author of numerous books including In Holy Terror, The River at the Center of the World, The Alice Behind Wonderland, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, and.Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World. In 2006, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to journalism and literature.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (1)
Library Journal Review
Winchester (Atlantic) both writes and narrates this chronicle of American exploration and discovery and the inventions that have connected the country. He attempts through popular history and personal travelog to explain how such a vast and varied nation as America was united into a whole. He attempts to frame this account through the lens of the classical five elements of Chinese philosophy: fire, earth, water, wood, and metal. For instance, he explains how metal telegraph and telephone wires brought the country together. Resources at the end of the print edition were not recorded. The author's excellent narration adds nuance to this recording. VERDICT Recommended for travel and history buffs. ["Highly recommended for public and school libraries and all readers looking for new and stimulating perspectives on the history of America," read the review of the Harper hc, LJ 9/15/13.]-David Faucheux, Louisiana Audio Information & Reading Svc., Lafayette (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| List of Maps and Illustrations | p. xi |
| Author's Note | p. xiii |
| Preface: The Pure Physics of Union | p. xv |
| Part I When America's Story Was Dominated By Wood, 1785-1805 | p. 1 |
| A View across the Ridge | p. 3 |
| Drawing a Line in the Sand | p. 6 |
| Peering through the Trees | p. 17 |
| The Frontier and the Thesis | p. 34 |
| The Wood Was Become Grass | p. 32 |
| Encounters with the Sioux | p. 41 |
| First Lady of the Plains | p. 49 |
| High Plains Rafters | p. 52 |
| Passing the Gateway | p. 55 |
| Shoreline Passage | p. 65 |
| Part II When America's Story Went Beneath the Earth, 1809-1901 | p. 73 |
| The Lasting Benefit of Harmony | p. 75 |
| The Science That Changed America | p. 77 |
| Drawing the Colors of Rocks | p. 80 |
| The wellspring of Knowledge | p. 83 |
| The Tapestry of Underneath | p. 88 |
| Setting the Lures | p. 91 |
| Off to See the Elephant | p. 96 |
| The West, Revealed | p. 104 |
| The Singular First Adventure of Kapurats | p. 113 |
| The Men Who Gave Us Yellowstone | p. 129 |
| Diamonds, Sex, and Race | p. 139 |
| Part III When the American Story Traveled by Water, 1803-1900 | p. 163 |
| Journeys to the Fall Line | p. 165 |
| The Streams beyond the Hills | p. 171 |
| The Pivot and the Feather | p. 180 |
| The First Big Dig | p. 188 |
| The Wedded Waters of New York | p. 196 |
| The Linkman Cometh | p. 214 |
| That Ol' Man River | p. 222 |
| Part IV When the American Story was Fanned by Fire, 1811-1956 | p. 239 |
| May the Roads Rise Up | p. 241 |
| Rain, Steam, and Speed | p. 248 |
| The Annihilation of the In-Between | p. 253 |
| The Immortal Legacy of Crazy Judah | p. 359 |
| Colonel Eisenhower's Epiphanic Expedition | p. 380 |
| The Colossus of Roads | p. 294 |
| And Then We Looked Up | p. 312 |
| The Twelve-Week Crossing | p. 316 |
| Part V When the American Story was Told Through Metal, 1835-Tomorrow | p. 329 |
| To Go, but Not to Move | p. 331 |
| The Man Who Tamed the Lightning | p. 335 |
| The Signal Power of Human Speech | p. 351 |
| With Power for One and All | p. 357 |
| Lighting the Corn, Powering the Prairie | p. 375 |
| The Talk of the Nation | p. 385 |
| Making Money from Air | p. 396 |
| Television: The Irresistible Force | p. 405 |
| The All of Some Knowledge | p. 416 |
| Epilogue | p. 429 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 435 |
| Bibliography | p. 441 |
| Index | p. 451 |