Rating: 
Summary: Ambrose Drops the Ball..
Review: The reviews I've read pretty well sum up my feelings about Mr.Ambroses' latest effort. It's an effort just to get through it and I'm only half-way there. I've enjoyed many of Mr. Ambroses' works for many years - from "Crazy Horse and Custer..." to "Citizen Soldiers", but am greatly disappointed by this one. The building of the Transcontinental Railroad is a fascinating story. But that story is yet to be written in an informative and entertaining way...
Rating:
Summary: Good book, not great
Review: I read this book by listening to the unabridged version on tape. It gave me a good feel for the scope of the entire project and an appreciation for the job that was accomplished. As far as being a great book, it was not. The author repeated too many things and that was very noticable on tape. It was as if he did not have enough to say, so kept saying the same thing over and over. Bottom line: I enjoyed finding out more about how the railroad was built but I felt that the story could have been told better.
Rating:
Summary: Laying track is a lot like watching paint dry...
Review: This book tells an important story. The story however is basically about the repetitive process of laying mile after mile of track. The crooks who fleeced the American people to build the project are an unsavory lot. I'm a big fan of Mr. Ambrose and have read most of his work. Who can forget his brilliant "D Day". However, as pointed out by other readers, he totally lost me when he and his editors failed to note the error in respect to Antietam. It was Lee's orders wrapped around the cigars - as every school boy knows. Important subject but in the end it's just mile after mile of track. p.s. I was happy to know where "Hell on Wgheels" originated.
Rating: 
Summary: A Nice Balance
Review: I don't know if this is serious history, but it's a great story. The first thing you get out of this book is that the railroad stands as a towering achievement. Whether it is emblematic of capitalist excess or corruption in government may be interesting, but at least these guys went out and did something. If you read histories of the 40's and 50's, you get the sense that Americans bit off more than they could chew. The Mormons were tossed out of the Midwest, and became a rather hostile force covering much of the West. The Gold Rush and the railroad actually closed the country from East to West. The negative years gave way to more positive ones. It is probably not unlike the building of the Internet. I suppose some of the masters of the universe should consider that Congress went after the Railroad owners, and the public viewed them with disdain. You know, after it was finished. At the same time having giant projects that spawn change and empower many other things make governing and keeping people happy a lot easier. So Ambrose points up the people who built the railroads, notably the Chinese, and how good people got at building railroads. He shows how the system was manipulated to get the project funded. It looked like the government was being taken, but in the end the government did pretty well because the bonds were paid off.
Rating: 
Summary: Will the real Stephen Ambrose please stand up!
Review: The subject is grand and the author is respected and prominent, so why has this book failed in its stated purpose? It reminds me most of the college student realizing at the last moment that his semester paper is due the next day and then scrambling to throw material together without regard to scholarship. I can only ask, "who really wrote this book?" and I speculate that it was written by Professor Ambrose's students in History 101. Either that or the author has resorted to churning out material just to capitalize on his popularity. Ambrose's cheerleading of the accomplishments of the common American man - he does it in his WWII books and others - makes him seem a little like the Tom Clancy of the history field. Clancy succeeds because of his terrific imagination and captivating style. Ambrose succeeds when he backs it up with good writing but in this book the poor scholarship and terrible editing is a real downer! How can any modern historian state, "The Chinese . . . needed little or no instruction in handling black powder, which was a Chinese invention . . ." (p.156). Really now! Perhaps all Chinese are good at flower arranging as well. How can an historian of Ambrose's stature totally invert a well known event of the Civil War as he does on p.292 with the statement that "George B. McClellan's uncoded orders were captured by the Confederates before the Battle of Antietam, giving Robert E. Lee a chance to read them." For those who are unfamiliar with this incident, it was Lee's orders that were discovered by Union troops near Frederick, MD, providing the bumbling McClellan with the information he needed to head off the attempt to invade Pennsylvania. Ambrose needs a new editor if this is what his current handler does. He tells us time and time again of the process of moving rails into place as the teams of Irish, Chinese, or Mormons try to beat some production goal. Other material is tediously repeated as though he was trying to meet his own mileage goal, further suggesting the college student padding his term paper to meet the professor's required number of pages. And little facts change from page to page - at one point the CP is 590 miles from Sacramento on April 9, while a page later the end of the CP tracks are 578 miles from Sacramento on April 27 - did they really regress during those 18 days? Maps! Wow, would they be helpful if they were positioned relevant to the material around them. The CP work in California is discussed early in the book, so why is the map of their route placed at page 342 where the discussion is about the CP and UP competition in Utah? And even if you locate the map you want, they frequently do not show the locations that Ambrose has identified as important milestones in the progress of the transcontinental project - the lack of detail is appalling. Professor Ambrose should have stuck with his first instincts as expressed in the acknowledgements. When his editor suggested the subject matter to him, "I hesitated. . . I wanted nothing to do with those railroad thieves." My response is only to note that when I see the Ambrose name on books in the future, I also will hesitate.
Rating:
Summary: success has made Ambrose lazy
Review: This is not a very good book. Not exciting, not well written, not very good history. Not ony is Ambrose talking down to us, he seems neither to care deeply about his subject nor to have masterered it very thoroughly. For a good read on building the railroad, try David Bain's EMPIRE EXPRESS. For a good book of history try Diana Muir's BULLLOUGH'S POND. Or read some of Ambrose's early work, that was good stuff.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful tale of the people behind the project
Review: The building of the transcontinental railroad was so important an undertaking, and left such an indelible print on this nation's history, that it is only fitting that Stephen Ambrose pen a book about this epic project. Mr. Ambrose explains in the introduction to "Nothing Like It In The World" that he was initially reluctant to write a book about the railroad, given his educational upbringing that drilled the "robber baron" philosophy into him. However, he said, as he did some preliminary research, he became utterly fascinated and realized the "robber baron" mystique hid a truly remarkable story. "Nothing Like It In The World" comes out less than a year after David Bain's "Empire Express", an expansive book also documenting the transcontinental railroad. As such, the two must be held up for comparison. Mr. Ambrose's "Nothing Like It In The World" is nowhere near the length and tremendous detail of "Empire Express", but it is eminently just as educational. Also, whereas "Empire Express" does focus on the men behind the project, the "human" aspect is lost amidst the technical detail. Mr. Ambrose, who has always excelled at delivering the compelling personal aspects of our history, strips away much of the expansive detail and once again shines at providing a look at the characters behind the project. "Nothing Like It In The World" does not lack for detail, though; it does provide many interesting facts and information, but does so in a much more concise and readable manner than "Empire Express". The other notable thing I found in reading this book is that it is somehow a natural progression for Mr. Ambrose to have written this after "Undaunted Courage". Oh sure, he has written other works in between "Undaunted Courage" and this one, but there was that intangible aspect that made reading this book seem like it was part of a multi-volume epic of American history. Mr. Ambrose does actually draw some links between the Lewis & Clark expedition and the railroad, about how both dramatically changed the country and even comparing the perils faced in each project. "Nothing Like It In The World" was probably better served being written, as it was, following "Undaunted Courage" for this reason. All in all, "Nothing Like It In The World" is a very worthwhile and enjoyable book. Whereas David Bain's "Empire Express" is remarkable in its scope and depth of information - making it a highly-rated work - Mr. Ambrose scores points on writing an account that can be enjoyed by the "non-academic" type who may or may not read a great deal of history. It still captures much of the drama and emotion of the project, and does drive home the true significance of this project on history. The only "negative" to this book is that this one is perhaps not to the same level of some of Mr. Ambrose's previous works - notably "D-Day", "Undaunted Courage", and "Citizen Soldiers". This is why I give it 4 stars instead of the full 5. However, I still wholeheartedly recommend "Nothing Like It In The World" to all audiences.
Rating:
Summary: Boring and repetitive
Review: As a fan of Stephen Ambrose, this work was a great disappointment for me. The biggest complaint is that the story was so repetitive. The same facts, over and over. In chapter after chapter, he remarks on the number of rails laid, the number of spikes driven, the number of fills made, the tunnels dug, and so on. I think much more life would have been given to the story if more personal accounts and incidents of the workers had been expanded upon. No doubt it was a great undertaking, but more should have been written about the common man doing the work. Additionally, more maps and photos should have been included which would have given the reader a better view than just the endless list of facts and figures. Ambrose really missed it on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of momentum in this book.
Review: I read this book in 4 nights. It's perfect for people who are interested in finding out more about the building of the transcontinental railroad but who don't want all of the nitty gritty. It really reads like an adventure story in so many ways. I don't give it 5 stars because there is some strange repetition of quotes and stories throughout the book, especially towards the end where it looks like the author and editor ran out of steam. I kept flipping back trying to find where I had read that particular story before. But I truly enjoyed this book!!
Rating:
Summary: Just a tad off his usual brilliance.
Review: The audiobook of this work was well done and kept my interest over the hours of driving and would recommend it to anyone. Indeed I've swapped the audiobook among my friends and they liked it too. But, I was prepared for the breathless energy of Undaunted Courage and this doesn't quite measure up. Factually redolent but somehow spiritually empty. Almost too much detail on the creators and financiers of the project and not enough on the grunt labor side of the project. Still you must buy this and listen. One of the greatest projects undertaken in America and it's still Ambrose, when not even at his best, he beats anyone else.
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