Panama: A Novel

by Bill Boyd

On the eve of the Panama Canal's return to its motherland, this swashbuckling novel presents the full panoply of its dramatic history. As told through the eyes of George Roosevelt Phillips -- a fictional nephew of Teddy Roosevelt -- we feel the energy, of a brash young America full of "Manifest Destiny, " blasting a new path between the oceans we felt it was our right to rule. Readers are swept along with the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, then through the wild plains of Nicaragua and jungles of Panama as Phillips scouts out possible routes for the new canal and then monitors its progress -- both political and physical.We visit the drawing rooms and halls of Congress as the now infamous Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed and the new nation of Panama is spawned by a US-inspired revolution in Colombia. We see the struggle to build the canal, and hold it, and meet a fascinating cast of heroes and adventurers, brilliant engineers and scientists, conniving diplomats, determined patriots and soldiers, and witness the hardships and setbacks of those who did the digging.

Panamanian Bill Boyd's novel offers an insider's intriguing insight into a rich chapter in the history of the Americas.

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Retired Macon Telegraph columnist Bill Boyd led a nomadic existence for the first 38 years of his life, first as the son of an Oklahoma sharecropper and then as a member of the United States Marine Corps.

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book prior to a trip to the Panama Canal. I enjoyed the history behind the canal written as a novel. I did not enjoy the fictious characters. They were too forced. I could easily have skipped over those parts and just read the history.