Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Parting the Desert by Zachary Karabell - Wait list

Parting the Desert

by Zachary Karabell
ebook
Read a sample Read a sample
Award-winning historian Zachary Karabell tells the epic story of the greatest engineering feat of the nineteenth century—the building of the Suez Canal— and shows how it changed the world.
The dream was a waterway that would unite the East and the West, and the ambitious, energetic French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps was the mastermind behind the project. Lesseps saw the project through fifteen years of financial challenges, technical obstacles, and political intrigues. He convinced ordinary French citizens to invest their money, and he won the backing of Napoleon III and of Egypt's prince Muhammad Said. But the triumph was far from perfect: the construction relied heavily on forced labor and technical and diplomatic obstacles constantly threatened completion. The inauguration in 1869 captured the imagination of the world. The Suez Canal was heralded as a symbol of progress that would unite nations, but its legacy is mixed. Parting the Desert is both a transporting narrative and a meditation on the origins of the modern Middle East.
Expand title description text
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Kindle Book

  • Release date: August 19, 2009

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780307566072
  • Release date: August 19, 2009

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780307566072
  • File size: 5236 KB
  • Release date: August 19, 2009
Loading
Loading

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Biography & Autobiography History Technology Nonfiction

Languages

English

Award-winning historian Zachary Karabell tells the epic story of the greatest engineering feat of the nineteenth century—the building of the Suez Canal— and shows how it changed the world.
The dream was a waterway that would unite the East and the West, and the ambitious, energetic French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps was the mastermind behind the project. Lesseps saw the project through fifteen years of financial challenges, technical obstacles, and political intrigues. He convinced ordinary French citizens to invest their money, and he won the backing of Napoleon III and of Egypt's prince Muhammad Said. But the triumph was far from perfect: the construction relied heavily on forced labor and technical and diplomatic obstacles constantly threatened completion. The inauguration in 1869 captured the imagination of the world. The Suez Canal was heralded as a symbol of progress that would unite nations, but its legacy is mixed. Parting the Desert is both a transporting narrative and a meditation on the origins of the modern Middle East.
Expand title description text
Biography & Autobiography History Technology Nonfiction