Conflicted: A History Podcast
Untangling history’s greatest controversies. Every month, we take a hard look at the historical conflicts that raise difficult questions, stoke controversy, and send our moral compasses spinning.
The Panama Canal – Part 2: I Took The Isthmus
After the French project to build a canal through Panama collapses in 1889 amidst disease and financial scandal, US President Teddy Roosevelt resolves to pick up where they left off. However, powerful interests in Washington are aggressively lobbying for a different route – not through Panama, but Nicaragua. As debate rages and backdoor deals are made, Panama becomes a lightning rod for controversy…and revolution.
SOURCES:
Burton, Anthony. The Canal Pioneers: Canal Construction from 2500 BC to the Early 20th Century. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Maritime, 2018.
Charles River Editors. The Panama Canal: The Construction and History of the Waterway Between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013.
Diaz Espino, Ovidio. How Wall Street Created a Nation: J.P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003.
Greene, Julie. The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal. New York: Penguin Press, 2009.
Karabell, Zachary. Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Keller, Ulrich. The Building of the Panama Canal in Historic Photographs. New York: Dover Publications, 1983.
Lasso, Marixa. Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019.
Lindsay, John. Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama. 2003.
Lopez, Sean J. Chokepoint: The Epic History of the Suez Canal. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2024.
Marlowe, Elias. A History of Panama: Canal, Conquest, and Independence. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012.
McCullough, David. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977.
Morton, Levi P. “No. 105. Mr. Morton to Mr. Frelinghuysen.” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 1, 1884, U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, 5 July 1884,https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1884/d105
Parker, Matthew. Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal. New York: Doubleday, 2007.
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