THE CANAL BUILDERS

Julie Greene

Advance Praise for The Canal Builders

“Most histories focus on the larger-than-life men who conceived the Panama Canal…Greene shifts the focus away from those at the top, instead telling the story of rank-and-file workers on the ground…[An] engaging labor history, and an astute examination of American policies.”

-Kirkus Reviews

“The Canal Builders is a marvelous account of an epic feat of engineering and construction, and a profoundly revealing interpretation of U.S. power in the 20^th century world. Julie Greene has rightfully placed the workers who built the great canal at the center of her compelling narrative—one that sets a new standard of excellence for transnational history.” –James Green, author of Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America

“Just as building the Panama Canal was a miracle of modern engineering, so is The Canal Builders a marvel of historical recreation. With precision and compassion, Julie Greene guides us through the complex, contentious world of the roughnecks who muscled their way through the Isthmus in the early days of the last century.” –Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice, A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age

“In this extraordinary book, Julie Greene has given us the first complete history of the Panama Canal by chronicling the international labor force that built it, the flawed politicians and engineers who designed it, and the utopian notions it inspired in many Americans. The Canal Builders is a landmark in the history of workers in the modern world, filled with revelations on nearly every page.” –Michael Kazin, author of A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

“Compellingly written and meticulously researched in Panamanian, British, and American archives, this is the first history of the Panama Canal that tells the personal stories of the people—black and white, women and men—who actually built it…

-Walter Nugent, author of Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion

From 1904-1914, one of the greatest labor mobilizations in history took place as tens of thousands of workers traveled from all over the globe to hew the Panama Canal from the wilds of Central America. Though this momentous project is most commonly remembered as a feat of modern technology and engineering, in THE CANAL BUILDERS: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal (The Penguin Press; February 5, 2009; $30.00), historian Julie Greene focuses on the human dimensions of the Panama Canal story, chronicling how workers from all over the world traveled to Panama to build the waterway that would launch the American century.  

Drawing from an abundance of diaries, letters and memoirs, THE CANAL BUILDERS offers a workers-eye view of this massive undertaking that spans the project’s controversial beginnings through its completion. Though many Americans saw it as an act of scandalous land-grabbing when President Theodore Roosevelt seized rights to a stretch of Panama, Roosevelt believed the canal could strengthen American military and commercial power while appearing to be a benevolent contribution to the world.

But first it had to be built. It was neither new technology nor the threat of disease that posed the greatest challenge to the Canal Zone officials, but rather the question of how best to motivate, govern and discipline the people of the Isthmus. Workers faced harsh and inequitable conditions: unions were forbidden, a pay scale based on race and nationality determined how workers were compensated—with West Indians carrying out the brunt of the dangerous jobs—and anyone not contributing to the project was deported. Greene’s rich narrative opens a window on the lives of the laborers and shows the ways in which canal workers and their families overcame the often appalling conditions in the Canal Zone, resisted government demands for efficiency at all costs, and forced American officials to revise many of their policies.

Engaging and revelatory, THE CANAL BUILDERS uncovers the human dimension of one of the biggest endeavors in the history of engineering, and, through this lens, recounts how the Panama Canal emerged as a positive symbol of American power, know-how, and beneficence that transformed the American national identity and its relationship with the world up to the present day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Julie Greene is a professor of history at the University of Maryland at College Park and the author of Pure and Simple Politics: The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 1881-1917. Educated at the universities of Michigan, Cambridge, and Yale, Greene has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.

THE CANAL BUILDERS
Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal
by Julie Greene
Publication Date: February 5, 2009
496 Pages * ISBN 978-1-59420-201-8* $30.00