Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BOOKS
Bookshops
are far from plentiful in Panama, with most located in Panama City, gen-
erally stocking a small, pricey selection in English. The colossus of contemporary
Panamanian literature is Enrique Jaramillo Levi - inter-nation-ally acclaimed short-
story writer, poet, essayist, editor and critic, who, despite such accolades, has had relat-
ively few works translated into English.
THE CANAL
William Friar
Portrait of the Panama Canal: From Construction to the Twenty-first Cen-
tury
. Very readable account by a former Zonian and
New York Times
journalist. This paper-
back coffee-table offering contains a few wonderful historical photos as well as some more
mundane contemporary glossies of the canal and Panama.
Julie Greene
The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal
. The
builders of the title are the workforce, the men and women who in dreadful conditions and
facing all sorts of discrimination worked to achieve the realization of America's grandiose
dream of empire. You also meet the big players whose ambition ignored the human cost.
Ulrich Keller
The Building of the Canal in Historic Photographs
. A clear case of pictures
speaking louder than words, as 164 detailed black-and-white photos evoke the lives of both
rich and poor engaged in the monumental struggle to build the canal.
David McCullough
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal,
1870-1914
. Though a detailed scholarly work of nigh on seven hundred pages, it is the plot-
twisting narrative and larger-than-life characters that sweep the reader along, together with a
consistent emphasis on understanding the underlying causes of events.
Matthew Parker
Hell's Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal
(also published
as
Panama Fever
). A gripping account of the struggle with jungle, disease, engineering im-
possibilities and disastrous ignorance, which is a meticulously researched yet wide-ranging
narrative that focuses on the oft-neglected labour force that lived and died digging the Big
Ditch.
OTHER HISTORY AND POLITICS
Kevin Buckley
Panama
. Written by a former
Newsweek
correspondent, this guide provides
what many consider to be the most reliable account of events leading up to the US invasion
of Panama in 1989. Buckley vividly brings the complex web of corruption and political in-
trigue to life.
Peter Earle
The Sack of Panama: Captain Morgan and the Battle for the Caribbean
. A
swashbuckling account of the real-life pirates of the Caribbean and the efforts of the Span-
