Nothing Like It in the World

History

First published: 2000
Print length: 431 pagesSimon & Schuster, 2000

Description

Nothing Like It in the World recounts the planning and construction of the Pacific Railroad, the 1860s project that linked the San Francisco Bay region with Council Bluffs, Iowa. Stephen E. Ambrose follows the undertaking through the investors and politicians who promoted it, the engineers and surveyors who determined its path, and the laborers who turned plans into track. Particular attention falls on the dangerous, exhausting work performed by Irish and Chinese immigrants, former Confederates, and other laboring communities. By moving between executive decisions and physical construction, the book presents the railroad as both an immense organizational achievement and a human struggle, showing how national ambition depended on people working under severe conditions across a vast distance.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Descriptive · Direct · Journalistic

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Earnest · Reflective · Tense

Structure

Chronological nonfiction

Focus

Character · Information

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

AmbitionClassInequalityMigration and displacementNature and environmentWork

About Stephen E. Ambrose

Stephen E. Ambrose was an American historian, biographer, and longtime professor at the University of New Orleans who became widely known for accessible works of popular history. His range included presidential biography, military history, western exploration, and large national enterprises. Across these subjects, he favored direct narrative and a close focus on people carrying out consequential plans. Band of Brothers and Citizen Soldiers place individual servicemen and their relationships within the larger movement of the Second World War, while D-Day joins operational history to veterans’ testimony. In Undaunted Courage, journals and letters support a similarly character-centered account of exploration; Nothing Like It in the World follows the politicians, engineers, and laborers behind the Pacific Railroad. Ambrose also wrote major biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. His standing as a popular historian is complicated by documented plagiarism in several books and later findings that he fabricated interviews and events in his Eisenhower biographies.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Language: English
ISBN: 9780684846095, 9780743203173

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