A Thread Across the Ocean
Written by John Steele Gordon
Narrated by Scott Brick
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
But in 1866, the Old and New Worlds were united by the successful laying of a cable across the Atlantic. John Steele Gordon's book chronicles this extraordinary achievement -- the brainchild of American businessman Cyrus Field and one of the greatest engineering feats of the nineteenth century. An epic struggle, it required a decade of effort, numerous failed attempts, millions of dollars in capital, a near disaster at sea, the overcoming of seemingly insurmountable technological problems, and uncommon physical, financial, and intellectual courage. Bringing to life an overlooked story in the annals of technology, John Steele Gordon sheds fascinating new light on this American saga that literally changed the world.
John Steele Gordon
John Steele Gordon is one of America's leading historians, specializing in business and financial history. A full-time writer for the last nineteen years, Gordon's articles have been published in, among others, Forbes, Forbes FYI, Worth, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times's and The Wall Street Journal's Op-Ed pages, and The Washington Post's Book World and Outlook. A contributing editor at American Heritage magazine, he has written the "Business of America"column there since 1989. His book, The Business of America (Walker & Company, 2001) is a collection of those columns. A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable (Walker & Company 2002) is Gordon's sixth book. His first book, Overlanding, about his experience driving a Land Rover from New York to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina??ine-month journey of 39,000 miles?? published by Harper & Row in 1975. It was followed by The Scarlet Woman of Wall Street, a history of Wall Street in the 1860?(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988), Hamilton's Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt (Walker & Company, 1997), and The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street as a World Power, 1653-2000 (Scribner, 1999). John Steele Gordon can be heard frequently on Public Radio International's Marketplace, the daily business-news program heard on more than two hundred stations across the country. He has appeared on numerous other radio and television shows, including Business Center on CNBC, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, The News with Brian Williams, and c-span's Booknotes with Brian Lamb. In addition, he has appeared in a number of television documentaries about American and economic history, including CNBC's The Great Game, based on his book, and Ric Burns's New York: A Documentary Film. John Steele Gordon lives in North Salem, New York. He is currently writing An Empire of Wealth: A History of the American Economy, to be published by HarperCollins.
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Reviews for A Thread Across the Ocean
52 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is an engaging story about the construction of the first transatlantic cable. The author provides a compelling portrait of the times and of the key personalities involved. It serves as a great introduction to a fascinating period in which the world instantaneously got much smaller.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is an engaging little book about the construction of the first transatlantic cable. The book skillfully walks the tightrope between too much background so the story gets lost, and not enough so the reader doesn't understand the issues. Readers who find themselves saying, "let's get to the job!" in books about construction of critical historical projects should not have that sense in this book. Nonetheless, the author provides a compelling portrait of the times and of the key personalities involved, so that I never lost interest. There is some glossing over the opposition to this project, but it will serve as a great introduction to this fascinating period in which the world instantaneously got much smaller.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A popular and easy-reading history of the transatlantic cable. As befits an author, John Steele Gordon, who writes business history, the central figure is Cyrus Field, the American who didn’t know anything about telegraphy or cable-laying or electrical technology, but knew a good idea when he heard one and knew how to raise money. Since I’m more interested in the technical aspect of things, I was prepared for disappointment; but the story of Mr. Field’s adventures among the world’s bankers and industrialists trying to raise cash are well told. And the other characters are there – Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who built the Great Eastern, a ship that was never a success as an ocean liner but proved excellent at laying cable; William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin; and many other minor but still interesting personalities.
Field’s first attempts at laying the cable were failures – it parted or was lost off the stern when the brakes failed. Finally, in 1857, he got a cable across – from Ireland to Newfoundland. The fist message was from Queen Victoria to President Franklin Pierce. Joy was unrestrained; newspapers trumpeted that the cable would put an end to war because countries could communicate rapidly, and so forth. The cable lasted a week before going dead. (In a interesting footnote, Gordon points out that a number of people thought the whole thing was a fraud - a conspiracy to sell shares in the cable company – and compares this to people who think the Apollo landings were a hoax).
However, in the one week the cable was operating, the British Government used the cable to countermand orders for two regiments to board ship at Halifax and sail for India. The savings were estimated to be between £50000 and £60000. This was about one-seventh the cost of laying the cable. Thus that one week of operation was enough to demonstrate a cable’s utility.
Unfortunately, before Field could raise enough money to try again, things got a little unsettled in the United States and a second attempt, with a better insulated and more heavily armored cable, couldn’t be made until 1865. This time the Great Eastern was within 600 miles of Newfoundland when the cable snapped and disappeared into the Atlantic. The Great Eastern had five miles of wire rope on board, and it was decided to try and grapple the cable. Rather surprisingly, this was successful – at least the grapple hooked something believed to be the cable. Unfortunately the wire was not continuous but spliced from hundred-fathom links, and each time the cable was lifted one of the splices parted. Finally when there was not enough wire left to try again the Great Eastern had to head for home.Field plunged into the breach once more, trying to get enough funding for another attempt in 1866 – and he did. This time everything went smoothly and the cable was hauled ashore in Newfoundland (well, not everything went smoothly; it turned out that the cable from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia had snapped after fouling a anchor, so that one had to be lifted and repaired before the news could be telegraphed to New York). Finally, the Great Eastern headed back out to sea, successfully grappled and lifted the 1865 cable, spliced it, and landed it back in Newfoundland as well. Thus there were now two working Atlantic cables.
It took a while before the cables became successful; the initial rate was $10/word with a ten word minimum (that’s about $500 a word in current money). However, once competition from a French company started, rates began to drop. By 1870, Wall Street and London brokers were each spending about $1M/year on cable charges.
Quite entertaining and informative and a quick read – took me 1 day worth a bus commuting. I now want to read more about the Great Eastern.