Railroaded

We tend to remember the railroad tycoons of the late 1800s in one of two ways–good or bad.

In the first, we imagine the Vanderbilts, Stanfords, and Goulds as the brilliant architects of the modern economy, “The Men Who Built America”–to quote the History Channel show. In the second, we imagine them as unscrupulous robber barons, evil geniuses who created the unequal corporate America that we still live in today. But what if both explanations give the railroad men far too much credit and responsibility?

In Richard White’s scathing and often hilarious book, he showcases these larger-than-life figures as bumbling,… show more.

I remember driving across a barren southwestern landscape and suddenly, in the distance, miles away, seeing a train snake across the desert. Trains are sort of magical to me. They change the relation of space and time. And they create and destroy fortunes. Richard White lays bare the era of massive railroad building, financial shenanigans, and the players at all levels. With his signature humor, he reveals the absurdity behind the mythology of the railroad barons and how the West got built.

Richard White does an incredible job of hilariously revealing the nasty, brutish, and incredibly dumb men who organized the building of the 19th century’s cutting-edge industry, the railroads. Making use of a corrupt U.S. government to develop junk bonds and kite those loans into personal fortunes, the Big Four and their successors shaped laws and political power to suit their interests, but at no time did their much-vaunted corporations come close to being the efficient engines of economic development they’ve claimed to be. This is a history that shows how utterly destructive and pointless much of the original tech… show more.