Panama Disaster 1: Ferdinand De Lesseps, “the Great Frenchman”, was convinced that he was the man to build the Panama Canal. No, he wasn’t an engineer and no, he’d never actually been to Panama before. But he’d managed to dig the Suez Canal, and everyone had said that would be impossible too. How hard could it be?
Panama Disaster 2: Sixteen years have passed since Ferdinand De Lesseps’ catastrophic failure in Panama, and the dramatic collapse of the French Panama Canal company. Now, President Theodore Roosevelt has picked up the task. “No single great material work,” Roosevelt tells Congress, “is of such consequence to the American people.”
The Americans have their work cut out. Enter chief engineer John Stevens. How does he spot a problem no-one else has noticed? And what does he do to solve it?
The Panama Canal series is available exclusively to subscribers of Pushkin+.
Further reading
Pushkin+ listeners seeking further reading for our episodes on the Panama Canal should consult The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough, Hell’s Gorge by Matthew Parker, John Frank Stevens, Civil Engineer by Clifford Foust, and Framers by Kenneth Cukier, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Francis de Vericourt.
Academic studies:
Michael Hogan “Theodore Roosevelt and the Heroes of Panama” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 1, Part I: American Foreign Policy for the 1990s and Part II: T. R., Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1901-1919 (WINTER 1989), pp.79-94
Jones, E. E.; Harris, V. A. (1967). “The attribution of attitudes”. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 3 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(67)90034-0. (See also Patrick Healy “The Fundamental Attribution Error“.)