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Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-69
Stephen E. Ambrose · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
T.J. Stiles · 719 pages
A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism.Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington's presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation's largest fleet o
Stealing the General: The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor
Russell S. Bonds · 398 pages
In April 1862, 20 Union soldiers crossed Confederate lines to steal a locomotive called the General and destroy a critical Confederate supply line. In the aftermath half the team was executed; the half that escaped received the newly established Medal of Honor. -- publishers description.
Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean
Les Standiford · 320 pages
Last Train to Paradise is acclaimed novelist Les Standiford's fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad--one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. shores. In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. Rockef
Mr Briggs' Hat: A Sensational Account of Britain's First Railway Murder
Kate Colquhoun · 339 pages
Lenin on the Train
Catherine Merridale · 368 pages
A gripping account of how, in the depths of the First World War, Russia's greatest revolutionary was taken in a 'sealed train' across Europe and changed the history of the world By 1917 the European war seemed to be endless. Both sides in the fighting looked to new weapons, tactics and ideas to break a stalemate that was itself destroying Europe. In the German government a small group of men had a
The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche
Gary Krist · 315 pages
"In February 1910, a monstrous blizzard hit Washington State. High in the Cascade Mountains near the tiny town of Wellington, two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found their railcars buried in rising drifts, parked precariously on the edge of a steep ravine. An army of the Great Northern Railroad's men worked round-the-clock to rescue the trains, but the storm was unrelenting
Locomotive
Brian Floca · 62 pages
Learn what it was like to travel on the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.
The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
Jonathan Alter · 432 pages
This is the story of a political miracle--the perfect match of man and moment. FDR took office in 1933 as America touched bottom. Banks were closing, millions of people lost everything--the Great Depression had caused a national breakdown. Journalist Alter brings us closer than ever before to the Roosevelt magic. Facing the gravest crisis since the Civil War, instead of circumventing Congress and
The Making of the English Working Class
E.P. Thompson · 848 pages
Thompson turned history on its head by focusing on the political agency of the people, whom historians had treated as anonymous masses.
Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880
W.E.B. Du Bois · 765 pages
Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World
Mike Davis · 467 pages
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Volume I
Fernand Braudel · 642 pages
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
Greg Grandin · 432 pages
The stunning, never-before-told story of the quixotic attempt to recreate small-town America in the heart of the Amazon, "Fordlandia" depicts a desperate quest to salvage the bygone America that the Ford factory system did much to dispatch.
The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630–1865
Mark Peterson · 784 pages
The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War
William Manchester · 1,022 pages
The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931
Adam Tooze · 672 pages
"A century after the outbreak of the First World War, a powerful explanation of why the war's legacy continues to shape our world. The war would make a celebrity out of Woodrow Wilson and would ratify the emergence of the US as the dominant force in the world economy"--
The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century
Robert B. Marks · 280 pages
Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time
Ira Katznelson · 713 pages
Redefining our traditional understanding of the New Deal, this book finally examines this pivotal American era through a sweeping international lens that juxtaposes a struggling democracy with enticing ideologies like Fascism and Communism. Historian Ira Katznelson asserts that, during the 1930s and 1940s, American democracy was rescued yet distorted by a unified band of southern lawmakers who saf
DETROIT: A Biography
Scott Martelle · 288 pages
"Detroit: A Biography takes a long, unflinching look at the evolution of one of America's great cities, and one of the nation's greatest urban failures. It tells how the city grew to become the heart of American industry and how its utter collapse--from 1.8 million residents in 1950 to 714,000 only six decades later--resulted from a confluence of public policies, private industry decisions, and de
Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West
Stephen Fried
Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History
Giles Milton · 400 pages
The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe
Michael Pye · 394 pages
Tells the story of how modernity emerged on the shores of the North Sea, uncovering a lost history of a thousand years rife with saints, spies, pirates, philosophers, artists, and intellectuals.
A People's History of the United States
Howard Zinn · 702 pages
Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, *A People's History of the United States* is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Jared Diamond · 494 pages
An epic detective story that offers a gripping expose on why the world is so unequal. Professor Jared Diamond traveled the globe for over 30 years trying to answer this question.