The Men Who United States

The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible (Hardcover) Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program (What's this?) 'The Men Who United The States' is an entirely predictable book with a slightly unusual format. The division of sections into the five 'elements' works, but the subject matter is as worn as wagon-wheel ruts in the prairie. Lewis and Clark occupy the first seventy pages, with you guessed it, extensive journal quotations. That journey and those journals have been told, iterated, reiterated, rehashed, recycled, and twice-told.
Next up is the gold rush, canal building, railroads, and finally, around page 300, something interesting. A young Eisenhower crosses the country with a military convoy on entirely unsatisfactory roads. Later the highway system is developed under his administration. What is interesting to each reader is a personal choice; as is what you have read and already know. Maybe you knew nothing of Lewis and Clark or the transcontinental railroad, but chances are, it was covered in high school.
The book finishes up with electricity, radio, and the internet. Two recent books come to mind here, James Gleick's brilliant 'The Information', and Tim Wu's more subtle 'The Master Switch', both give the zero and one universe it's full due. Mr. Winchester overdoes the predictable, and barely scratches the interesting. The idea of other Americas is unknown to the text, black America and the women who united the states are sorely lacking.


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