I have read Path Between the Seas and a number of other books about life and the wonders of Panama including a recent one called  Banana People which I truly loved.  I think that Goliath will be my next read.  These books are especially interesting as they speak of parts of the country I live in and the past lives of people who shaped this wonderful country of Panama.

Here is an intro…“Roosevelt’s international board of engineers set the stage for Sibert’s travail when the majority report recommended a sea level canal, citing the dam planned for Gatun as a major reason for avoiding dams and locks with a sea level approach,” Robert W. Dickey explains in “Friction and Fun in Panama,” the 13th chapter in “Goliath of Panama: The Life of Soldier and Canal Builder William Luther Sibert,” his compelling new portrait of a farm boy from Alabama with a gift for mathematics who helped change the world’s geopolitical landscape.

“President Roosevelt, of course, rejected the report and ramrodded through Congress a slack water navigation plan – a system born of dams and operated by locks, as recommended by the panel’s minority,” Dickey continues. “After appointment to the Isthmian Canal Commission, Sibert studied the alternatives in detail and found himself in full agreement with the locks and dams concept. He welcomed the opportunity to participate in building the world’s greatest slack water navigating system. He knew it would work as it had worked on the Green and Barren Rivers back in Kentucky, only exponentially bigger and more complicated.”

“Goliath of Panama: The Life of Soldier and Canal Builder William Luther Sibert,” by Robert W. Dickey. Morley, Mo.: Acclaim Press, 2015. 384 pages, $26.95.