Product Description: Today, in a world in which news flashes around the globe in an instant, time lags are inconceivable. In the mid-nineteenth century, communication between the United States and Europe -- the center of world affairs -- was only as quick as the fastest ship could cross the Atlantic, making the United States isolated and vulnerable...read more

A close-up look at one of the greatest engineering feats of all time describes the successful laying of a cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1866, exploring the remarkable physical, financial, and technological challenges of the project and assessing the impact of the cable on the course of twentieth-century history.