Hacker News Books

An amazing book covering the efforts to connect the two oceans is "The Path Between the Seas" by David McCullough.[0]

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Path_Between_the_Seas

His Excellency, by Joseph J. Ellis, is very good. I strongly recommend it. Founding Brothers, by Ellis, is also very good (and short).

David McCullough has several tremendous US history books, including John Adams, 1776, The Wright Brothers, The Path Between the Seas.

For those who wonder how Panama Canal opened up (how hard it is to open a canal at that geography due to diseases, soil, water), you may want read The Path between the Seas

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671244094/bobsutton-...

The book The Path Between The Seas is an incredible history of the Panama Canal. http://www.amazon.com/The-Path-Between-Seas-1870-1914-ebook/...

Short version: the French tried to build it as an investment, but the vision they could sell (sea level canal) couldn't be built. USA took over and muscled through because it was strategically important to the govt and it was a huge jobs program and stimulus to American companies selling food, transportation, steel, construction equipment, medicine, etc to the 30k+ workers. Also gave electrical projects to a young GE!

Interesting analogy. I've been reading The Path Between the Seas[1], about the construction of the Panama Canal, and whoo boy, now I won't be able to think about it except as a failed software startup. The hype. The outrageous valuations and fund-raising rounds. The charismatic founder. The blatant disregard of decades of accumulated knowledge. The pivots. The skirting, blindsiding, and lobbying to get around government regulation. The aqu-hire. The moment when the burn-rate overtook the runway, and further desperate rounds of funding were sought, at poisonous terms. Burn-out, layoffs, and attrition. The fire-sale exit. I'm just now getting up to the patent war-chest aquisition and the second-system effect stages of the canal...

[1] http://amzn.to/2eSBq16

The Black Company by Glen Cook[1]. Gritty low-fantasy story about a more-or-less lovable band of misfit mercenaries.

The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough[2]. Account of the history of the building of the Panama Canal, from the first French attempts, their collapse, the political and business machinations to transfer ownership to the US.

A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire by Geoffrey Wawro[3]. History of Austro-Hungary in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Great War and the disastrous first year of the war on the Austrian fronts.

Old Man's War by John Scalzi[4]. Military Sci-fi. Elderly earthers are recruited, have their consciousness implanted in young, superhuman, and extra-human, clones, and are sent out to the stars to wage questionable war to expand the human race.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman[5]. Starship Troopers, except with relativity, and so the poor SOBs on the front-lines watch the rest of the world move ahead millenias around them.

Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears by William Hertling[6]. A team at a suspiciously Google-like corporation inadvertently creates an AI system integrated with their email system, which develops beyond its creators wildest dreams.

[1] http://amzn.to/2gEdbns

[2] http://amzn.to/2h5nIZg

[3] http://amzn.to/2gda4lm

[4] http://amzn.to/2h85fvW

[5] http://amzn.to/2h5seaw

[6] http://amzn.to/2gddDN6