Reedsy.com is a web site supporting authors. I asked them to give a review of my book, Crossing the Continent, now available on Amazon Books. This was their review, written by Rachel Deeming.
Loved it! 😍
An historical book revealing the trials, innovations and collaborations that led to America’s western expansion – oh, and the characters!
SYNOPSIS
The drama of America’s efforts to span the continent is told through a series of biographical stories interconnected over two centuries. The stories include both familiar and less familiar individuals–George Washington surveying for the Erie Canal; Thomas Durant as a master schemer in building the transcontinental railroad; Alice Ramsey, the first woman to drive coast-to-coast; Carl G. Fisher, an eccentric entrepreneur who solicited support for the country’s first coast-to-coast highway; William Boeing offering the first coast-to-coast commercial passenger flights. Surprising connections between these and other transcontinental pioneers presents a narrative that is intriguing, enlightening, and sometimes unbelievable. As America struggled to find its way west, these captivating stories provide the focus for a history of American daring and determination.
I found Norm Tyler’s Crossing the Continent incredibly interesting. What we have here is a book which is meticulously researched and packed full of information and pictures which have been sieved and distilled by Tyler to create a documentation of the stories of pioneers, entrepreneurs, visionaries and mercenary businessmen, who all had a hand in making travel across America possible.
Tyler starts with the establishment of the first routes and gradually progresses from tracks, byways and passes to rail, road and beyond, keenly illustrating what a vast undertaking creating the means to cross America was. I think it is easy in our day and age to overlook how much was involved in making these advances happen; on a financial level, yes, but also on a physical level as the modern world relies so heavily on machinery to get things done quickly and efficiently but if that plant hasn’t been invented yet, then it’s all down to good old-fashioned manpower.
It was enlightening. I didn’t know most of the names mentioned by Tyler but that didn’t matter because he was able to bring them alive for me, with the biographical detail he has gleaned and contemporary accounts from newspapers alongside first person dealings. And you have a proper diverse bunch of men here and, I was pleased to note, a few women.
I especially liked the chapter devoted to Fisher who sounds like more of a showman than an entrepreneur at times and was perhaps the first businessman to truly understand how, if you want to get the consumer on board, a good place to start is to excite them. It transpires that it was, in Fisher’s case, also the way that he got himself a wife!
I did sometimes feel like some of the chapters were heavy on the detail and that there was a tendency to repeat when it was not always necessary for understanding but this is a minor criticism for a book which is competently and comprehensively written.
If you’ve ever been curious about the figures and the processes involved in how the European settlers made their way west and how America was connected from coast to coast, then I can recommend this book wholeheartedly.
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