The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible (original 2013; edition 2014)

by Simon Winchester

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History. Nonfiction. HTML: Simon Winchester, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings. How did America become "one nation, indivisible"? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America's most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, such as Lewis and Clark and the leaders of the Great Surveys; the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph and the powerful civil engineer behind the Interstate Highway System. He treks vast swaths of territory, from Pittsburgh to Portland, Rochester to San Francisco, Seattle to Anchorage, introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today's United States. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree. Featuring 32 illustrations throughout the text, The Men Who United the States is a fresh look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together. .… (more)

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Member:	AsYouKnow_Bob
Title:	The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
Authors:	Simon Winchester
Info:	Harper Perennial (2014), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 512 pages
Collections:	Your library
Rating:
Tags:	history, American history, technology, canals, surveying, SCPL - Whitney Room, 2015, upgraded by a hc copy, for disposal

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The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible by Simon Winchester (2013)

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Another Simon Winchester deep dive into an specific aspect of history, this time about a handful of people who, early on, shaped the US into the country it is.

Meh. Not my favorite of his works; I found myself needing to put effort into focusing on the content, and that’s usually not the case with Winchester’s writing. (

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electrascaife | Apr 10, 2024 |

As always with Simon Winchester , we'll researched & interesting and marred by a bit of alpha male smugness.Sacajawea not important to the expedition, that is revisionist history. (

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cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |

Great "listen", especially while walking. The segments allow for small sound bites without losing your train of thought. (

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jemisonreads | Jan 22, 2024 |

This ambitious undertaking is Simon Winchester’s attempt to show how the America came together into one nation. It is structured in a logical way, considering the vastness of the topic, in five categories: wood, earth, water, fire, and metal. The author covers a wide swath of American history, highlighting many familiar names as well as unsung heroes, providing the reader enough information to get a sense of their personalities and eccentricities. He covers such diverse undertakings as exploration, geological surveys, pioneering, canals, railroads, mines, highways, electricity, telegraphy, radio, telephones, television, and the internet.

Simon Winchester, born in the UK, became an American citizen in 2011, and this book clearly shows his affection for his adopted country. Winchester is a skilled storyteller. He employs an elegant style sprinkled with dry humor. He weaves in personal stories of his many travels to these regions, connecting more current endeavors to those of the past. This book is engaging and wonderfully written. The audio book is well-read by the author. Listening to this book is like being immersed in a well-researched documentary. I enjoyed it tremendously.
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Castlelass | Oct 30, 2022 |

I was enjoying the book until the author digressed from the historical narrative to make a commentary on modern times. When he left behind the journey of Lewis and Clark to make an unlikely connection to the modern need to build weapons of mass destruction, he lost me: "The world would come later, when canoes became bombers and wooden paddles jet engines." Really? (

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Richard_Bradshaw | Jan 22, 2022 |

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thingScore 75

Winchester is America in miniature: many talents, many loyalties and numerous, often contradictory opinions. He’s a bundle of contradictions. Little wonder he finally feels at home.

added by tim.taylor | editThe New York Times, Stephen Mihm (Nov 8, 2013)

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Simon Winchester	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Ljoenes, Richard	Cover designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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Indivisible

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Lewis and Clark Expedition

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Epigraph

Think of the United States today - the facts of these thirty-eight or forty empires solder'd in one - sixty or seventy millions of equals, with their lives, their passions, their future - these incalculable, modern, American, seething multitudes around us, of which we are inseparable parts!
- Walt Whitman, A Backward Glance o'er Travell'd Roads (Preface to the 1898 edition of Leaves of Grass)

Dedication

First words

(Preface) Early in the crisp small hours of November 7, 2012, a weary but exultant Barack Obama was thanking his countrymen for just handing him a second term as forty-fourth president of the United States.

Thomas Jefferson was a man with a lifelong fascination with trees.

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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

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Brokaw, Tom

Schiff, Stacy

Original language

English

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United States

▾Book descriptions

History. Nonfiction. HTML:

Simon Winchester, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings.

How did America become "one nation, indivisible"? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America's most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, such as Lewis and Clark and the leaders of the Great Surveys; the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph and the powerful civil engineer behind the Interstate Highway System. He treks vast swaths of territory, from Pittsburgh to Portland, Rochester to San Francisco, Seattle to Anchorage, introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today's United States.

Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree. Featuring 32 illustrations throughout the text, The Men Who United the States is a fresh look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together.

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