Book notes
In the “Book Notes” column, John A. Gable reviews two books that cover different aspects of the era of Theodore Roosevelt. He praises David McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 for its “careful research, balanced judgment, and good prose.” Gable compares McCullough’s verdict on Roosevelt’s actions regarding the Canal with the work of other Roosevelt scholars, and he gives over much of his review to an extended quote from a letter McCullough wrote to President Jimmy Carter supporting passage of the 1977 Canal treaties.
Gable endorses, with some reservations, They Were Ragtime, a popular history of the United States in the Progressive era written by Warren Forma. Gable lists many of the personalities from entertainment, the arts, and the business world who populate Forma’s work, and he argues that the work is valuable for its look at popular culture in turn of the twentieth-century America.
