Wedding Of The Waters
(Peter L. Bernstein)
First proposed in 1808 & completed 17 years later, the Erie Canal was the first great feat of macroengineering undertaken by the infant American republic. As economic consultant Bernstein shows in his eloquent account ,the canal - stretching363 miles from Hudson River to Lake Erie - reshaped not only the economic landscape of the eastern seaboard but the political & social landscape as well.
He vividly relates the political battles fought over the high-priced project & the work of surveyors, engineers & labourers . The canal was in particular an economic engine for New York , bringing down the cost of shipping goodsbetween Buffalo & Manhattan by a whopping 90%. This in turn inspired the development of farms throughout the Great Lakes area & the Upper Midwest.
At the same time , prices for farm commodities in Manhattan & other eastern cities dropped steadily , facilitating the growth of industrial workforces & a dramatic shiftinthe urban-to-rural ratio toward the cities. Bernstein does a first-rate job of examining the social , political & economic impact of the canal both as a construction project& as a viable path linking the Atlantic seaboard with the American interior .This well written book succeeds brilliantly in bringing this rich story to life.
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