Friday, July 18, 2008
The Last Spike
Pierre Berton
1971
This is a history book about the actual construction of the rail road in the 1890's. It is the continuation of a story started in The National Dream.
This book is perhaps Berton at his best. The story continues, told as much as the story of the people involved as the story of the railroad itself. I don't think that everyone is all that into railroad history, but it seems that a lot of people are. For those people, this book is a pleasure. Railroads, I suppose, have a bit of romanticism still attached to them, and their construction is so real and human that a railroad can't be built without thousands of stories coming into existence. Berton connects the best of these stories. I read this book preparing to take the train from Toronto to Vancouver and I couldn't be happier that I did. The train route is steeped in history, and there's no better compliment to the trip than this book.
Pierre Berton
1971
This is a history book about the actual construction of the rail road in the 1890's. It is the continuation of a story started in The National Dream.
This book is perhaps Berton at his best. The story continues, told as much as the story of the people involved as the story of the railroad itself. I don't think that everyone is all that into railroad history, but it seems that a lot of people are. For those people, this book is a pleasure. Railroads, I suppose, have a bit of romanticism still attached to them, and their construction is so real and human that a railroad can't be built without thousands of stories coming into existence. Berton connects the best of these stories. I read this book preparing to take the train from Toronto to Vancouver and I couldn't be happier that I did. The train route is steeped in history, and there's no better compliment to the trip than this book.
# posted by mz @ 10:09 AM 
