The author of Citizen Soldiers and D-Day chronicles an unprecedented feat of engineering, peopled with investors, politicians, engineers, and surveyors as well as countless Chinese, Irish, and former Confederate laborers. To accelerate the building of a transcontinental railroad, the U.S. government pitted two companies—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads—against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution, and in Stephen Ambrose's prose this massive enterprise comes vibrantly to life.
"Richly readable ... [the author] bears the reader on shoulders of wonder and excitement."—NYTBR
