The Path Between the Seas

The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914

By: David McCullough

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the National Book Award for history, The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.

Like his masterful, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography John Adams, David McCullough's The Path Between the Seas has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This audiobook is a must-listen for anyone interested in American history, international intrigue, and human drama.

©2001 David McCullough (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

• National Book Award, History, 1978

"A chunk of history full of giant-sized characters and rich in political skullduggery." ( Newsweek)

No Stone Unturned

I can understand why "The Path Between the Seas", about the Panama Canal is getting mix reviews from other listeners. I'm only the fourth person to write a review on this audiobook and the audio was published just a few years ago. The print version was published over 30 years ago, but the information is not outdated because the Panama Canal is a part of the Earth that was man made.

If you are not familiar with David McCullough, you will have a rough time getting through any of his books because he will go on and on with detail after detail. There is no stone unturned when he writes about our history. This is why you always know at what you are purchasing when listening to one of his titles.

David McCullough is a legend among the greats. He will tell you the back stories beyond the focal point, that no one ever bother talking about. They are usually human interest stories on the crew that helped build the structure, or the troops that fought in the war.

Reading about the Panama Canal was a bit tiring just because I've read a lot of other titles from McCullough this year. The Path Between the Seas was the third book from this historian when it got published in 1977. It won several awards, but he didn't get his first Pulitzer Prize until 16 years after for Truman. If you are a fan of this historian, you must need to invest your time at reading Truman. By far, it is just one of his best.

As for The Path Between the Seas, it's another apart of history that I totally skipped over when I was in school, but I'm enjoying it now.

As I mentioned before, I've read a lot from David McCullough in the past months and kind of need to take a break, but I am never disappointed of any of his titles.

It's the details that keeps the listener to keep listening.

A Complete *MYSTERY*

Here is my question:

You are a director of a large section of a very prosperous firm. Its specialty is creating books that have been converted from reading to listening. Where before you might have silently wondered how to pronounce some unfamiliar word or foreign name, now there is someone—they call them "voice actors" but really, they are just people reading books aloud, albeit possibly more skilfully than your average person on the street—who is interpreting all these words *for* you.

Anyway, now you are a director who supervises getting books recorded to tape, and you must choose the right person to do the job.

So now in front of you is a book you have read multiple times, because it is your job to read books multiple times, so that you will know what the particular requirements are going to be for someone reading these books aloud—and in this case, the book is The Path Between The Seas, a book about the creation of the Panama Canal.

It immediately becomes evident that this is a book that is filled with names. A very, very large amount of names—names of people, names of places, most of which most people will never have heard of. Furthermore, in this book there are many, many nationalities featured; in fact, it is a veritable compendium of nationalities and cultures, ranging from Europe to the Far and Near Easts, with large sections about the Middle East and North and South America.

There will be Spanish. There will be lots and LOTS of Spanish. Your man (for he will be a man, not a woman, for reasons known only to yourself) *must* be skilled at speaking Spanish, or at the very least he should be very, very familiar with the Spanish language and its peculiarities with regard to English; its intonations and cadences, but above all its *pronunciation*.

But—and here is the largest "but" of this review—the first large, HUGE section of the book deals with a famous (in his time) FRENCH man. His name is French, his dealings are in French and MANY, MANY things concerned with him are in FRENCH.

So here, you mark with a big red pencil at the top of the list you are making for the requirements of the man you want to be reading this book aloud to potentially hundreds of thousands of eager listeners, many of whom will have paid upwards of $20 for the privilege—here, you mark: "Number one: MUST SPEAK FRENCH enough NOT TO MANGLE SIMPLE WORDS."

This is—or should be—the NUMBER ONE REQUIREMENT for a reader of this book.

It is not hard, this search for the main requirements of the job of reading this book, The Path Between The Seas, by David McCullough. It is not hard, it is even EASY.

And the VERY FIRST REQUIREMENT is to hire someone who can speak a little French.

So WHY did the creators of this audiobook choose a reader of this very, very good book who clearly had a very, very hard time in French class in high school—probably got Ds in this subject, and probably hated it—WHY did they choose a man for whom the pronunciation of French—a prerequisite at the VERY TOP of any list for requirements of readers of this book—is a struggle, a torture, an awful tangle of tongue and lips and indeed, entire mouth, for someone whose pronunciation of something as simple as "L'ocean" becomes an unrecognizable garble of nonsense not resembling any language at all?

This is a monumental failure, a huge and utter catastrophe for David McCullough and any hopes that he may have had for this magnificent book to be transliterated into an audiobook. It's a massive failure for him but mostly, it's a massive failure for US.

Frankly, I just don't know what else to say.

Update: Summer, 2023—Third Listening Using Apple Air Pods Pro (with noise cancelling)

Ouf. The clarity that descends on the reading of this book due to noise cancelling suddenly brings to life a new horror: Nelson Unger's entire gastroenterological tract. It's as if, before he began narrating this book, he had implanted a secondary microphone into a gastroscope, just so we could enjoy, as he did, what he had for dinner the previous night. The gurgling, murmurs, esophageal rumblings and then—special treat—his gingival salivary states of health thrown in for our edification.

Why Mr. Unger did not simply hit the "Mute" button during his long pauses between sections is entirely as mysterious as the source of Philippe Buneau-Varilla's wealth.

In the last two listenings I was using cheap Chinese earphones, which let in the ambient sounds of ordinary life, but the Air Pods Pro's complete masking of extraneous sound invites us to share Nelson Unger's very private world . . . at one point in a pause between section one can clearly hear Unger's wife call out "Nelson!" I rewound and listened again and again to confirm that a) it was indeed his wife and b) she was calling him, presumably to dinner, so we could all share in his gastrointestinal rumblings for chapters to come.

*EXTRAORDINARY* that whomever was responsible for the recording of this book allowed all this to pass . . . Unger's actual narration, except for his mangling of foreign names (see above) is quite good, and I'm pleased to report that as his new gastroenterologist/dental technician, his health is, too.

Otherwise good book desperately needs an editor

This is an interesting book. Actually, it is two interesting books and that is the problem. The construction of the Panama Canal is clearly a subject of immense interest to David McCullough, who has written a book about the canal's French and American construction episodes that positively drowns the reader in superfluous detail. Really, this is two different stories which would be best left to two different books. McCullough's editor failed him here, for much of the material in this book would be best left on the cutting room floor. There is plenty of good material in this book, just too much of it. Another shortcoming regards the "performance" or audiobook narration. This book is full of Spanish and French person and place names, and the narrator is simply not good at pronouncing those names. The result is just a bit annoying and painful to listen to.

Amazing accomplishment in history

I finished it in 2 weeks but I want to listen it again and again.

My favorite part is the revolution and independence of Panama despite the strong opposition of the colombian government.
The support and big effort made by Theodore Roosevelt to complete the canal , by his engineers; and the total eradication of malaria who killed thousands of workers during the construction.
I recommend this lecture 100%

Great book, horrible narrator

What did you love best about The Path Between the Seas?

This is a very interesting, engrossing, well written history. Absolutely fascinating.

What didn’t you like about Nelson Runger’s performance?

Besides the fact that he's too slow - and you can fix that by using the audible app at 1.25x speed - the extraneous mouth sounds he makes all the time render this book almost unlistenable. Can't the sound engineers edit that out? It's really gross, and extremely annoying.

Not McCullough's best and reader was draggy

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

The story is interesting, but unlike the Brooklyn Bridge, the back story was not as interesting and McCullough went into long passages of tangential material. I'm a big McCullough fan but this was longer than necessary. And it was made all the worse by a reader who was so painfully slow, you could nap between his sentences. It was like listing to a 45RPM recording at 33. It was 31 hours worth of listing that could have been done in 2/3 the time if the reader had picked up the pace. It was so draggy my mind would wander between passages.

What didn’t you like about Nelson Runger’s performance?

His slow pace was a terrible distraction.

Great story pummeled by bad narration.

Any additional comments?

I love David McCullough, who I believe is a national treasure and America's greatest historian. This story of the Panama Canal is a must read. I have read the text version and listened to this audiobook (as I approached the actual canal for a crossing). The text version captures McCullough's voice much better than this arrhythmic and mouth breathing performance. The mouth noises (like gum chewing) and awkward pauses drove me batty. I finally had to listen to this book at twice-speed in order to squelch my annoyance. In fairness, the narrator did start to find his cadence after much of this long book was already done.

An incredible Undertaking

This fascinating story suffers a bit from too much detail...yet I hesitate to suggest what could be left out. Nelson Runger did a great job of narration, but until I figured out that it needed to be listened to at 1.25 speed, he was making me crazy. I think this was the producer’s error, and not Runger’s. Now that I have finally finished, I am excited to be going to Panama next week!

Detail, Detail

There are so many characters & details that it becomes very tedious unless you are an avid history lover & can keep track of multiple individuals interacting, often with little results. No wonder it took so long to build. Save yourself lots of time & get the PBS video of the making of the Canal which is well done & conveys the story interestingly.

I can't take the reader, but good story

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

yes

Would you be willing to try another one of Nelson Runger’s performances?

absolutely NOT

Could you see The Path Between the Seas being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

no

Any additional comments?

The reader was horrible. He actually ruined the book. He stressed words randomly as if he were sleeping on the job. He read it in a really awkward way.

Good book, annoying narrator

The narrator was very frustrating with this book. His cadence was difficult to get used to and it felt unnatural, as if he was just reading each word and applying random inflections. Great story though.

Epic story

Interesting multi faceted 50 to 60 year story. As good or better than the story of the Brooklyn bridge by same author. Narration brings it to life.