All Hail The Panama Canal, A Frontline In The US-China Trade War

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McCullough starts the epic tale with detailed accounts of France's failed 20-year attempt at construction and the political battle in Washington over where and what kind of canal to build. Only then does he detail the grueling 10 years it took to make the canal a reality.

Between 1904 and 1914, more than 232 million cubic yards of dirt and rock were excavated, 25 million cubic yards just to compensate for the continuing landslides. At one point the excavators had to dig down nearly 300 feet.

The three sets of locks the Americans built were a structural triumph. These big water elevators operate by gravity, not pumps, using tunnels to move the water. Their massive miter gates can open and close in just two minutes.

To create the artificial lake that feeds the system, they built what was then the world's largest earthen dam. The 2 million cubic yards of concrete poured for just the set of locks nearest the Caribbean Sea could have built a solid wall eight feet thick, 12 feet high and 133 miles long.

The work cost $352 million (roughly $10.8 billion in today's money) and killed 5,600 – mostly black workers from the Caribbean islands.

As terrible as those casualties sound, the French effort had taken 20,000 lives. That death toll was a big reason for France's failure. (Another was its unrealistic plan for a sea-level canal, without locks, through Panama's mountainous terrain.)

One reason for the American success was the ability of a doctor from Alabama, William Gorgas, to eradicate yellow fever and control malaria.

Thanks mainly to the organizational ability of Major General George Washington Goethals, the project's third chief engineer, the canal was finished ahead of schedule and $23 million under budget. The work was so good that the original locks and control system are still in use today. (Between 2007 and 2016, Panama built a new, parallel set of locks to accommodate today's largest ships.)

In addition to a canal, the US helped build a nation – Panama. The Panamanian isthmus had been part of Colombia. When Colombians negotiating with the US proved recalcitrant, an impatient President Theodore Roosevelt sent warships in support of the Panamanians' declaration of independence.

Many in Congress, including the chair of the key Senate committee, wanted the canal built in Nicaragua. William Cromwell, an American lawyer representing French interests, and Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, the key French investor, intervened with Roosevelt to get it built in Panama. This classic piece of lobbying saved the French company's bacon. The US bought its assets in Panama.