TY - BOOK AU - Greene, Julie, TI - The canal builders: making America's empire at the Panama Canal T2 - Penguin history of American life SN - 9781594202018 AV - 114 F 1569 G811c 2009 U1 - 972.875051 22 PY - 2009/// CY - New York PB - Penguin Press KW - Canaux KW - Panamá KW - Canal de Panamá KW - Conception et construction KW - Histoire KW - Canal de Panamá (Panamá) KW - Zone du canal de Panamá KW - Historia N1 - Bibliogr; Prologue: President Roosevelt's steam shovel -- A modern state in the tropics -- "As I am a true American" -- Silver lives -- Lay down your shovels -- Progressivism for the world -- The women's empire -- Law and order -- The riots of Cocoa Grove -- Hercules comes home N2 - The Panama Canal has long been celebrated as a triumph of American engineering and ingenuity. In The Canal Builders, Julie Greene reveals that this emphasis has obscured a far more remarkable element of the historic enterprise: the tens of thousands of workingmen and workingwomen who traveled from all around the world to build it. Greene looks past the mythology surrounding the canal to expose the difficult working conditions and discriminatory policies involved in its construction. Drawing extensively on letters, memoirs, and government documents, the book chronicles both the struggles and triumphs of the workers and their families. Prodigiously researched and vividly told, The Canal Builders explores the human dimensions of one of the world's greatest labor mobilizations, and reveals how it launched America's twentieth-century empire"--Back cover. ER -