America's Greatest Engineering Projects: The Construction History of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Panama Canal, and the Hoover Dam

The Transcontinental Railroad, laid across the United States during the 1860s, remains the very epitome of contradiction. On the one hand, it was a triumph of engineering skills over thousands of miles of rough terrain, but on the other hand, it drained the natural resources in those places nearly dry. It “civilized” the American West by making it easier for women and children to travel there, but it dispossessed Native American civilizations that had lived there for generations. It made th...