Book Review - Panama Fever

A thrilling tale of exploration, conquest, glory, money, politics and medicine.What amazed me most about the book is the amount of information the author has collected from multiple sources while putting together this epic story in the form of a book. The smallest of incidents that happened more than a century back are all well documented and archived in multiple sources. The book is about the epic story of building one of the greatest engineering marvels of the modern era the Panama canal. For centuries kings,business leaders and explorers were constantly looking at ways to connect this small passage across the Isthmus of Panama which in turn would connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific
and whoever controlled this canal would get enough power and influence over global trade and in turn a control on the fate of nations.The effort was literally back breaking and took almost 35 years before it was finally commissioned in the year 1914.

The French initially led the effort to build the Canal in the year 1881 and the man incharge was the Ferdinand De Lesseps the same genius who had build the Suez canal
a few years back. The ambitious project took America and Europe by storm and drew everyone's attention including engineers, drafstmen,diggers, machinists all
wanted to be a part of this project and take advantage of the high wages and in turn be amongst the men who were part of his high profile project. Politicians and businessmen from Europe and America were constantly involved in high stakes diplomacy and in deciding the path to be taken, the technology to be used, the funding plan and where to get cheap labor from. While most of the administrative and engineering jobs were led by the French the construction jobs were invariably from close by West Indian colony of Jamaica.

Unfortunately the French effort to build the canal didnt last for long and after about 14 years they had to give up due to many reasons the most important being cost overruns and thousands of deaths of workmen in the tropical climate of Panama due to Yellow fever , Malaria and Typhoid. Thousands of people lost their lives due to these diseases and many returned to their countries never to come back to work in these horrific condition.

After a decade or so the effort was again revived and this time the Americans took the lead and were backed by the US Government itself. Extremely committed and highly decorated Engineers were now sent to Panama to get the work back on track. In spite of poor living conditions in the humid tropical climate and racial discrimination against the West Indian black workforce the project managed to go on as per schedule. At the later part the US army was also involved in the construction work. Eventually after 10 year from the time the Americans started the work and more than 20000 people loosing their lives due to diseases and accidents in the site the canal was finally commissioned in the year 1914.

The story shows how a small strip of land in a small Central american country suddenly changed the world and made it smaller and launched the era of American Engineering dominance. The Americas were separated by the canal but the world of global trade just became one.