Book ID: CBB716002628

Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal (2019)

unapi

Marixa Lasso (Author)


Harvard University Press


Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 352
Language: English

The Panama Canal set a new course for the modern development of Central America. Cutting a convenient path from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, it hastened the currents of trade and migration that were already reshaping the Western hemisphere. Yet the waterway was built at considerable cost to a way of life that had characterized the region for centuries. In Erased, Marixa Lasso recovers the history of the Panamanian cities and towns that once formed the backbone of the republic. Drawing on vast and previously untapped archival sources and personal recollections, Lasso describes the canal’s displacement of peasants, homeowners, and shop owners, and chronicles the destruction of a centuries-old commercial culture and environment. On completion of the canal, the United States engineered a tropical idyll to replace the lost cities and towns―a space miraculously cleansed of poverty, unemployment, and people―which served as a convenient backdrop to the manicured suburbs built exclusively for Americans. By restoring the sounds, sights, and stories of a world wiped clean by U.S. commerce and political ambition, Lasso compellingly pushes back against a triumphalist narrative that erases the contribution of Latin America to its own history.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Catherine C. LeGrand (2021) Review of "Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal". American Historical Review (pp. 731-735). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB716002628/

Similar Citations

Book Maurer, Noel; Yu, Carlos; (2011)
The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal (/isis/citation/CBB001421566/)

Article Salvatore, Ricardo Donato; (2006)
Imperial Mechanics: South America's Hemispheric Integration in the Machine Age (/isis/citation/CBB001030915/)

Book Ashley Carse; (2014)
Beyond the big ditch: politics, ecology, and infrastructure at the Panama Canal (/isis/citation/CBB384585453/)

Book Clifford Foust; (2013)
John Frank Stevens: Civil Engineer (/isis/citation/CBB366312234/)

Article Carse, Ashley; (2012)
Nature as Infrastructure: Making and Managing the Panama Canal Watershed (/isis/citation/CBB001250761/)

Book Christopher F. Jones; (2014)
Routes of Power: Energy and Modern America (/isis/citation/CBB824368541/)

Book Ashley Carse; (2014)
Beyond the Big Ditch: Politics, Ecology, and Infrastructure at the Panama Canal (/isis/citation/CBB368970305/)

Article Marixa Lasso; Ashley Carse; Christine Keiner; Pamela M. Henson; Paul S. Sutter; Megan Raby; Blake Scott; (2016)
Panama Canal Forum: From the Conquest of Nature to the Construction of New Ecologies (/isis/citation/CBB558077487/)

Book Tore C. Olsson; (2017)
Agrarian Crossings: Reformers and the Remaking of the US and Mexican Countryside (/isis/citation/CBB691965950/)

Article Siler, Stetson M.; (2008)
Operation Just Cause: An Air Power Perspective (/isis/citation/CBB001030849/)

Article Martin-Frechilla, Juan José; (2008)
El dispositivo venezolano de sanidad y la incorporación de los médicos exiliados de la Guerra Civil española (/isis/citation/CBB000932886/)

Book Chaves-Carballo, E.; (2007)
The Tropical World of Samuel Taylor Darling: Parasites, Pathology and Philanthropy (/isis/citation/CBB000774283/)

Book Moore, Sarah J.; (2013)
Empire on Display: San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 (/isis/citation/CBB001550146/)

Book Baum, Gerald L.; Daniel, Thomas M.; (2002)
Drama and Discovery: The Story of Histoplasmosis (/isis/citation/CBB000201294/)

Book McGreevy, Patrick; (2009)
Stairway to Empire: Lockport, the Erie Canal, and the Shaping of America (/isis/citation/CBB000954267/)

Book Robert James Kapsch; (2013)
Over the Alleghenies: Early canals and railroads of Pennsylvania (/isis/citation/CBB650042571/)

Authors & Contributors
Carse, Ashley
Sutter, Paul S.
Keiner, Christine
Marixa Lasso
Blake Scott
Kapsch, Robert J.
Concepts
Panama Canal
Canals
Infrastructure
Transportation
Technology and politics
Technology
Time Periods
20th century, early
20th century
19th century
21st century
20th century, late
Places
United States
Panama
Mexico
San Francisco (California)
Hawaii (U.S.)
Latin America
Institutions
Tennessee Valley Authority
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment