The Big Ditch

Download or read book The Big Ditch written by Noel Maurer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive economic and political history of the Panama Canal On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened for business, forever changing the face of global trade and military power, as well as the role of the United States on the world stage. The Canal's creation is often seen as an example of U.S. triumphalism, but Noel Maurer and Carlos Yu reveal a more complex story. Examining the Canal's influence on Panama, the United States, and the world, The Big Ditch deftly chronicles the economic and political history of the Canal, from Spain's earliest proposals in 1529 through the final handover of the Canal to Panama on December 31, 1999, to the present day. The authors show that the Canal produced great economic dividends for the first quarter-century following its opening, despite massive cost overruns and delays. Relying on geographical advantage and military might, the United States captured most of these benefits. By the 1970s, however, when the Carter administration negotiated the eventual turnover of the Canal back to Panama, the strategic and economic value of the Canal had disappeared. And yet, contrary to skeptics who believed it was impossible for a fledgling nation plagued by corruption to manage the Canal, when the Panamanians finally had control, they switched the Canal from a public utility to a for-profit corporation, ultimately running it better than their northern patrons. A remarkable tale, The Big Ditch offers vital lessons about the impact of large-scale infrastructure projects, American overseas interventions on institutional development, and the ability of governments to run companies effectively.

Download or read book Beyond the Big Ditch written by Ashley Carse and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-10-24 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical and ethnographic study of the conflict between global transportation and rural development as the two intersect at the Panama Canal. In this innovative book, Ashley Carse traces the water that flows into and out from the Panama Canal to explain how global shipping is entangled with Panama's cultural and physical landscapes. By following container ships as they travel downstream along maritime routes and tracing rivers upstream across the populated watershed that feeds the canal, he explores the politics of environmental management around a waterway that links faraway ports and markets to nearby farms, forests, cities, and rural communities. Carse draws on a wide range of ethnographic and archival material to show the social and ecological implications of transportation across Panama. The Canal moves ships over an aquatic staircase of locks that demand an enormous amount of fresh water from the surrounding region. Each passing ship drains 52 million gallons out to sea—a volume comparable to the daily water use of half a million Panamanians. Infrastructures like the Panama Canal, Carse argues, do not simply conquer nature; they rework ecologies in ways that serve specific political and economic priorities. Interweaving histories that range from the depopulation of the U.S. Canal Zone a century ago to road construction conflicts and water hyacinth invasions in canal waters, the book illuminates the human and nonhuman actors that have come together at the margins of the famous trade route. 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal. Beyond the Big Ditch calls us to consider how infrastructures are materially embedded in place, producing environments with winners and losers.

Download or read book Timmy O'Dowd and the Big Ditch written by Len Hilts and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 1988 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1800s, young Timmy O'Dowd and his city boy cousin must forget their differences and pool their energies when the Erie Canal is damaged by storms.

Download or read book Ditch of Dreams written by Steven Noll and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2009-11-22 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, men dreamed of cutting a canal across the Florida peninsula. Intended to reduce shipping times, it was championed in the early twentieth century as a way to make the mostly rural state a center of national commerce and trade. Rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers as "not worthy," the project received continued support from Florida legislators. Federal funding was eventually allocated and work began in the 1930s, but the canal quickly became a lightning rod for controversy. Steven Noll and David Tegeder trace the twists and turns of the project through the years, drawing on a wealth of archival and primary sources. Far from being a simplistic morality tale of good environmentalists versus evil canal developers, the story of the Cross Florida Barge Canal is a complex one of competing interests amid the changing political landscape of modern Florida. Thanks to the unprecedented success of environmental citizen activists, construction was halted in 1971, though it took another twenty years for the project to be canceled. Though the land intended for the canal was deeded to the state and converted into the Cross Florida Greenway, certain aspects of the dispute--including the fate of Rodman Reservoir--have yet to be resolved.

Download or read book Ditch That Textbook written by Matt Miller and published by . This book was released on 2015-04-13 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Textbooks are symbols of centuries-old education. They're often outdated as soon as they hit students' desks. Acting "by the textbook" implies compliance and a lack of creativity. It's time to ditch those textbooks--and those textbook assumptions about learning In Ditch That Textbook, teacher and blogger Matt Miller encourages educators to throw out meaningless, pedestrian teaching and learning practices. He empowers them to evolve and improve on old, standard, teaching methods. Ditch That Textbook is a support system, toolbox, and manifesto to help educators free their teaching and revolutionize their classrooms.

Download or read book The Ditch written by Herman Koch and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I played the scene back about ten times in my mind. First from start to finish, then from finish to start. In slow motion. Frame by frame. I tried to stop the action at the moment when my wife looked from me to the alderman. I corrected myself: avoided looking at the alderman. Robert Walter, popular mayor of Amsterdam, suspects his wife is cheating on him. Then Robert’s elderly parents tell him that they’re planning to end their lives. His father hints that it will be sooner rather than later, but he won’t say when. Alarmed, Robert starts to doubt himself and everyone around him, lost in increasingly panicked and paranoid trains of thought. But is it paranoia? Or is he actually seeing things clearly for the very first time? The Ditch shows how quickly even the most stable lives can be sabotaged by secrecy and suspicion—and humans’ masochistic urge to undermine ourselves. ‘Herman Koch is rapidly becoming one of my favourite writers. His three novels, taken together, are like a killer EP where every track kicks ass.’ Stephen King ‘Chilling, nasty, smart, shocking and unputdownable.’ Gillian Flynn on The Dinner ‘The Dinner is a riveting, compelling and deliciously uncomfortable read... both a punch to the guts and...a tonic. It clears the air. A wonderful book.’ Christos Tsiolkas ‘Blackly funny, full of sharp edges and hot issues, and compulsively readable. Verdict: feast on this.’ Herald Sun on The Dinner ‘The Dinner is a masterful, disturbing piece of theatre.’ Age/SMH

Download or read book Bulletin written by United States. Office of Experiment Stations and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 1204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: