Best panama history books according to redditors

We found 20 Reddit comments discussing the best panama history books. We ranked the 6 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

Next page

Top Reddit comments about Panama History:

u/bluesky557 · 70 pointsr/UnresolvedMysteries

Injury and/or infection seem like safe bets. I highly doubt he "went native" (ugh, colonial-era racism) or set up a cult. The jungle is extraordinarily dangerous and the insect problem is probably what got them in the end. I read David McCullough's The Path Between the Seas about the building of the Panama Canal, and it's estimated that over 27,000 workers died from malaria and yellow fever. Three guys alone in the Amazon with rudimentary protection would probably perish very quickly.

u/SeanUR · 19 pointsr/ireland

If you want to learn more about the Irish in Latin America I highly recommend this book

u/marcdasharc4 · 14 pointsr/Panama

Never learned it in school here, but the whole story of the Scottish settlement in Darién is featured prominently in The Path Between The Seas by David McCullough. I read it shortly after high school. “Thrilling” isn’t an adjective I would normally use to describe a non-fiction book, but the way McCullough pieces the history of the canal with the history of Panama and the various countries and personalities invested in the project(s) at one point or another is superb.

u/ahu747us · 7 pointsr/Panama

Path between the seas is a very good book about the Panama Canal construction. Written by David McCullough.
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002FK3U4Q/ref=aw_ss_kndl_dp/

u/MidEastBeast777 · 6 pointsr/educationalgifs

Yup, Ferdinand de Lesseps was the one who was given much of the credit for the construction of the Suez Canal. He tried to do the same in Panama and make the whole canal at sea level but failed miserably and almost bankrupted France.

The book by David McCullough on the Panama Canal is an amazing read https://www.amazon.com/Path-Between-Seas-Creation-1870-1914/dp/0671244094

u/Elphinstone1842 · 5 pointsr/AskHistorians

There are lots of great books about Port Royal in its heyday. The first ones I'd recommend are The Sack of Panama by Peter Earle and Empire of Blue Water by Stephen Talty which both give really solid broad introductions to the politics and environment of the Caribbean and Port Royal's relationship with buccaneers during its heyday in the 1660s until 1671 when England started to crack down on them.

If you want more specialized reading exclusively on Port Royal then I'd recommend Pirate Port: The story of the sunken city of Port Royal by Robert F. Marx for some light reading, and if you want a really excessively meticulous study of everything you ever wanted to know about Port Royal from written records and archaeological findings with lots of maps and reconstructions included then read Port Royal Jamaica by Michael Pawson and David Buisseret.

Lastly, a great primary source on Port Royal in its heyday is the contemporary book The Buccaneers of America which was published by Alexandre Exquemelin in 1678. Exquemelin himself was an actual former French/Dutch buccaneer and the book contains many of his first-person recollections, such as this describing the activities of buccaneers in Port Royal in the 1660s which has clearly influenced some modern pirate tropes:

> Captain Rock sailed for Jamaica with his prize, and lorded it there with his mates until all was gone. For that is the way with these buccaneers -- whenever they have got hold of something, they don't keep it for long. They are busy dicing, whoring and drinking so long as they have anything to spend. Some of them will get through a good two or three thousand pieces of eight in a day -- and next day not have a shirt to their back. I have seen a man in Jamaica give 500 pieces of eight to a whore, just to see her naked. Yes, and many other impieties.

> My own master used to buy a butt of wine and set in the middle of the street with the barrel-head knocked in, and stand barring the way. Every passer-by had to drink with him, or he'd have shot them dead with a gun he kept handy. Once he bought a cask of butter and threw the stuff at everyone who came by, bedaubing their clothes or their head, wherever he best could reach.

> The buccaneers are generous to their comrades: if a man has nothing, the others will come to his help. The tavern-keepers let them have a good deal of credit, but in Jamaica one ought not to put much trust in these people, for often they will sell you for debt, a thing I have seen happen many a time. Even the man I have just been speaking about, the one who gave the whore so much money to see her naked, and at that time had a good 3,000 pieces of eight -- three months later he was sold for his debts, by a man in whose house he had spent most of his money.

u/rkdude02 · 5 pointsr/Panama

Path Between the Seas by David McCullough is pretty much the magnum opus on the subject.

u/[deleted] · 4 pointsr/AskHistorians

Well, I probably like the story of Henry Morgan the best. Accounts vary, but the short version is that he was a privateer (a pirate licensed by the Crown or government) for England against its enemies, chiefly Spain, in the 1600s. He later turned full-blown pirate, attacking anyone he came across. Despite this, in his later years, he was knighted and later served as lieutenant-governor of Jamaica until he fell out of favour with King Charles II.

I would encourage you to read The Sack of Panamá: Captain Morgan and the Battle for the Caribbean by Peter Earle, as although it doesn't tell the complete life of Morgan, it is one of the more accurate versions of (part of) his life.

u/cgalv · 4 pointsr/FeMRADebates

Theories of what caused maladies were many and varied before the germ theory eventually won out in the early days of the 1900s. It's crazy to think about it, but they still hadn't figure out that, for instance, malaria was an illness caused by a microscopic parasite transmitted through the bite of a mosquito at the time they were digging the Panama canal...leading to many a tragic treatment theory for malaria wards. I recommend The Path Between The Seas for a tragically enlightening read.

A theory that hysterical behavior was caused by a malfunction of the uterus is not really any more sexist than the general belief that people had 4 'humors' in their body, and their relative imbalance could cause illness. Or that illness was caused by 'bad air' especially from swamps.

u/eternalkerri · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

I used Alexander O. Esquemelins book Buccaneers in America

Bennerson Little's The Sea Rover's Practice

And The Sack of Panama

edit: sorry about that last post, I should have cited, but I was quite ill the past two days.

u/nolocontendere · 3 pointsr/todayilearned

At least when the US executed Panamanian forces the same way during Operation Just Cause, the families were never sent bills for the ammo.

u/CHIDJM · 3 pointsr/environment

Someone else listed the source, but this book, The Path Between The Seas, covers it very in depth, and is 100% worth the read. I consider it one of the best books I've read of 2014, and that is an extensive list full of some really good books.

u/marmd · 2 pointsr/europe

Hey! There's a very good irish Newspaper in Buenos Aires which covers news about Ireland and the irish community here: The Southern Cross. They don't have a webpage, so I'm linking to their Medium


I also recommend you this book: Paisanos: The Forgotten Irish Who Changed the Face of Latin America by Tim Fanning. The prologue was written by Michael Higgins, so I guess it is sold in Ireland. I don't know how known is the story of irish people in South America up there

edit: Removed facebook link

u/theycallmemorty · 2 pointsr/videos

If you're interested in the history of the construction of the original canal I highly recommend a book called Path Between the Seas by David McCullough. It's full of all kind of interesting stuff about the political, engineering and epidemiological problems they faced.

u/ongakuka · 1 pointr/AskReddit

i read this quote in David McCullough's incredible book about the Panama Canal, called The Path Between The Seas. It comes from John Stevens, the man who eventually came in and finished the overwhelmingly gargantuan task of completing the construction of the Panama Canal, perhaps the largest engineering task ever undertaken up until that point.

"Do something, for the mistake can be corrected...but there is no way to correct nothing".

u/vonHindenburg · 1 pointr/MapPorn

I'd highly recommend David McCullough's "Path Between the Seas" for a great discussion of the Panama/Nicaragua debate and history of the actual construction.

u/Zifnab25 · 1 pointr/Economics

> How so?

Because the economic policies of Venezuela were not codified in 1999.

> Which of these is not chavista policy?

The one where Venezuela invested hundreds of millions of dollars in petrochemical factories way back in the 70s and 80s.

> Nonsense.

If your familiarity with Venezuela comes from scare stories you read on the internet last week, it'll come as a shock, no doubt.

I recommend picking up Exiting the Whirlpool, a history of US-Latin American relations from the 1970s to the 1990s.

u/alamosh · 1 pointr/Panama

Just bought the Kindle edition. Here's the link for anyone interested.

u/desktop_version_bot · 1 pointr/Panama