Simon Schuster</br></br>Product Description</br></br><i>Nothing Like It in the World</i> gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering?? vision?? and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad?the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked?? and sometimes lost?? their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants?? the defeated Confederate soldiers?? and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.<BR><BR>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. Locomotives?? rails?? and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or aroun"erica to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose's hands?? this enterprise?? with its huge expenditure of brainpower?? muscle?? and sweat?? comes vibrantly to life.</br></br>Amazon.com Review</br></br>Abraham Lincoln?? who had worked as a riverboat pilot before turning to politics?? knew a thing or two about the problems of transporting goods and people from place to place. He was also convinced that the United States would flourish only if its far-flung regions were linked?? replacing sectional loyalties with an overarching sense of national destiny.<p> Building a transcontinental railroad?? writes the prolific historian Stephen Ambrose?? was second only to the abolition of slavery on Lincoln's presidential agenda. Through an ambitious program of land grants and low-interest government loans?? he encouraged entrepreneurs such as California's "Charles Crocker?? Collis Huntington?? Mark Hopkins?? and Lelan