Rating: 
Summary: An inspiring story....
Review: This book tells the story of the men who built the first Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860's. After reading this book, I still find it difficult to believe that this railroad was built during that time. It would be extremely hard to build this railroad using today's technology. Using 1860's technology, many people viewed the task as impossible, yet it was completed.While this book is a quick, good read, it does differ somewhat from the first-person history typically associated with Stephen Ambrose. This is simply due to the fact that the people who built the railroad are no longer living. Regardless, Ambrose uses many contemporary accounts to build his story, and no railroad fan or history buff should be without this book.
Rating: 
Summary: It is not easy being Ambrose
Review: It is not easy being Ambrose. He is held to a very high standard. His books on WWII are introducing whole new generations to the defining moment of our history. His skills go beyond WWII. His book on Lewis and Clark was amazing. If this book was by any other author everyone would love it, but compared to the rest of his collection this book is not the gold standard. Ambrose is famous for bringing life and emotion to history and this book falls a little short, almost as if his heart was not 100% into the subject. I enjoyed it, but was not blown away.
Rating:
Summary: Not as inspired as his WW2 books, but interesting
Review: I listened to this book on CD, and came away a lot more knowledgeable than I ever had been about the building of these railroads. Everyone has heard about (or should have back in 11th grade US History) Promontory Point, but when the real story of the financing, political maeuvering, and construction heartaches come into play, it becomes much more impressive. Names are sometimes hard to link from earlier stories, and sometimes the book can get a little minute with things, and not enough attention gets given to engineering marvels. Still, I have been spoiled by Ambrose's earlier works, and when compared to Undaunted Courage or his WW2 books, this does not come off as well. Ambrose here is a victim of his own success. Despite these concerns, a reader will come away with a lot more education than they probably had before.
Rating:
Summary: Solid History of the Transcontinental Railroad
Review: Stephen Amrose has a wonderful gift for finding interesting things to write about; this book is another example of this. The book covers the period from the 1830s, when the idea of the transcontinental railroad is first broached, to the 1850s, when the idea is seized upon by railroad-savvy politicians like Abraham Lincoln, to the 1870s, when the idea becomes feasible for two reasons -- the ability of capital markets to generate enough capital for the project (even though it involved scandals like Credit Mobilier) and the creation of large scale industrial enterprises using quasi-military organization that became feasible after the experiences of the Civil War. The book is full of good thumbnail sketches of visionaries like Theodore Judah, who conceives of the route that the Central Pacific must take to get through the Cascades, and the practical men who cut deals to make the reality happed, such as Durant of the Union Pacific and Brigham Young, who negotiates shrewdly in providing a labor force to cross the Utah desert. Ambrose's prose style is somewhat flat, though never jarring, so the information is presented in a straighforward way. A good book for a railroad enthusiast who wants an introduction to the technologies used and the people involded in the project.
Rating: 
Summary: The Decline Continues
Review: It's sad to see that Ambrose, the author of such wonderful early biographies and histories, continues to churn out flawed and increasingly wooden material. He appears much more concerned these days with being President of 'Stephen Ambrose Inc.', than he is with writing solid history. If you're truly interested in the history of the Transcontinental Railroad, read David Bain's book instead. It may give you a few more details than you care to know, but the his passion for the work comes through almost as loudly as the passion (both good and nefarious) of the speculators and tycoons who lurked and paraded on the Transcontinental stage. In addition to several unforgiveable factual errors, Ambrose's work captures very little of the historical immensity of the this magnificent feat. Ambrose and his publisher are trying to sell words on paper based on the author's name. Hopefully he'll go back soon to writing insightful, compelling history that teaches as much as it entertains.
Rating:
Summary: Rambling yet interesting
Review: I give Ambrose the benefit of the doubt by giving this book three stars...two-and-a-half would probably be more accurate. While the story of the transcontinental railroad is interesting, and Ambrose does convey a sense of how limited transportation was in the early nineteenth century, this book does have flaws. Besides some actual errors, Ambrose's style gets rather grating. He has a tendency to get a bit florid in his writing. In addition, neither of his parallel narratives are told in a linear fashion, which I feel this sort of history requires; he moves back and forth in time, so often one chapter starts a year or more prior to where the previous related chapter left off. I also have Ambrose's Eisenhower biography, which I have yet to read, but I must admit that reading this one as lowered my expectations for that biography. I hope that this book is an aberration in his writing.
Rating:
Summary: A narrative (but not a history)
Review: Ambrose states up front that he is only going to tell the story of how the Pacific railroad was built without any form of analysis and he does exactly that.
The storytelling technique is quite choppy. The author attempts to tell the stories of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific at the same time, in the same manner that the railroad was built, but this sometimes leaves the reader dizzy.
Better editing would have helped this book. There are some regrettable errors and typos. More of the sites mentioned in the text should have been included on the maps, which could have been presented in a more logical order.
Rating:
Summary: Workmanlike
Review: Solid, if unspectacular, history of the drive to link the railroad line from the east to the one from the pacific. Several parts are interesting, such as the dangerous and hazardous conditions the men had to work under, the engineering accomplishments, and the different nationalities that came together to complete this monumental task. Ambrose also does a good job of pointing out how the railroad transformed the country. At times though, the text gets dull for me, especially when the telegrams and posts that say how much materiel was needed, what materiel was on the way, etc was shown word-for-word. I also feel that some of the stories behind the scenes on how the railroad was financed could have been fleshed out a bit more. A good book, but the complete story wasn't told.
Rating: 
Summary: The Quest for the Golden Spike
Review: There is no-one quite as good as Stephen Ambrose in re-telling tales of muscular American deeds. Short sentences. Bold men. Lots of 'em. Digging. Behind the macho veneer, however, is an intelligent account of how and why the transcontinental railroad came into being. As Ambrose explains, Northern victory in the Civil War was a sine qua non of building a railroad: until then, no-one could agree on a route (or the slave status of the territories it would run through). The bravery and endurance required of its makers was equal to that required to defeat the South: in a real sense, the railroad was an equally heroic sequel, featuring many of the same performers - Dodge only the most conspicuous example.
Rating:
Summary: Rushed into print...needed editing...
Review: I'm reluctant to give a book by Stephen Ambrose just three stars, but this book didn't meet my expectations, even after reading and accepting the author's comments in his "Acknowledgements."
First, this is a complicated and elaborate story -- the building of two separate railroads that eventually met in Utah. The story, for lay-readers, needs to be greatly simplified, with emphasis on internal review and transition, since the author is trying to tell two completely separate stories. Ambrose, apparently, was handicapped in not having good/adequate primary source material in the form of letters, diaries, journals, etc. from the leading players in this 19th century epic. Keep in mind the book's subtitle: "The Men Who Built The Transcontiental Railroad, 1863-1869" -- Ambrose clearly intended to tell us the story of these men and their contributions, etc. The "men" are pretty much depicted like the biographical sketches you'd find in high school United States history textbooks.
Early in the narrative I was bothered by the excessive repetition of facts and incidents, making me wonder whether the first draft was even proofread.
The book really has two highlights -- the photos and the Epilogue.
Where I think Ambrose made a strategic error in trying to tell the story without a continuing chronological/geographical narrative of the construction of both the UP and CP, leaving the reader bewildered by personalities/names jumping from one location to another, often in search financing.
"Nothing Like It In The World contains lots of facts, not much substance -- the book doesn't live up to it's title. Sorry, Stephen, but this book deserved more time and energy.
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