A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable

Synopsis

Today, in a world in which news flashes around the globe in an instant, time lags are inconceivable. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, they were a fact of life. The United States was remote from Europe, the center of world affairs, and communication was only as quick as the fastest ship could cross the Atlantic. Instant contact seemed as unlikely then as walking on the moon did in the 1950s. The Civil War had barely ended, however, when the Old and New Worlds had been united by the successful laying of a telegraph cable that spanned the Atlantic in 1866. A Thread Across the Ocean chronicles this extraordinary achievement, one of the greatest engineering feats of that century--and perhaps of all time. It was an epic struggle, requiring a decade of effort, numerous failed attempts, millions of dollars in capital, a near disaster at sea, the overcoming of seemingly insurmountable technological problems (many of them entirely unforeseen before work commenced), and uncommon physical, financial, and intellectual courage. In the end. it literally changed the world. The cable was the brainchild and consuming passion of American businessman Cyrus Field, who was only thirty-three when he first conceived the cable project and set out to raise the necessary capital. It attracted a range of luminaries from the start, among them William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), the greatest applied physicist of the century and scientific adviser to the project, and the great English engineer. Isambard Kingdom Brunei, whose ship, the Great Eastern--five times the size of any ship afloat at the time--carried the entire cable on the final attempt in 1866. None of them, however, could have imagined the tribulations they would face. Thirty-four years after the cable was laid, the "American century" began. While the cable did not make this inevitable, it did make it possible. By bringing to life a dramatic and overlooked story in the annals of history and technology, John Steele Gordon sheds fascinating new light on the American saga.

Copyright:

2002

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

248 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780802713643

Publisher:

Walker & Company

Date of Addition:

11/28/17

Copyrighted By:

John Steele Gordon

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Communication

Submitted By:

BookMouse

Proofread By:

BookMouse

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.