Publishers Weekly
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A visionary businessman braves terrible weather and cutthroat opposition to achieve Promethean results in this rousing history. Journalist Tabor (Forever on the Mountain) recaps the efforts of paper manufacturer Cyrus Field to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable in the 1850s and ’60s, an initiative that would bring Europe and the Americas into instant communication, yield big profits, and, he believed, foster world peace. The narrative recounts a series of intrepid cable-laying expeditions and maddening setbacks. Field’s first expedition ended ignominiously when the cable disappeared irretrievably into the depths. His second weathered a monstrous storm, but still completed a functioning transatlantic cable—which then quit working after a few weeks. His third was plagued by probable sabotage—spikes were discovered driven into the cable. The fourth, successful expedition, in 1866, was a race against Western Union’s efforts to link San Francisco with Europe via a cable across the Bering Strait and Russia. Tabor makes Field’s quest into an epic maritime adventure, as well as a riveting study of technological progress, as each failure goads new improvements. It’s also a vivid portrait of Field, a man of missionary zeal and angst—he assumed he would go to hell if any sailors died—whose dogged resilience rallied investors after each disaster. The result is a captivating saga of Victorians cobbling modernity into existence under the most grueling circumstances. (June)

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Far more than basic cable. Tabor, author of the pulse-quickeningBlind Descent: The Quest To Discover the Deepest Place on Earth (2010) goes deep again—underwater this time—to explore the largely forgotten history of the transatlantic telegraph cable. He’s resurfaced an engrossing tale, with much relevance to our time. At its heart is Cyrus Field, who at age 15 in 1835 ventured from rural Massachusetts to New York City and became, by his early 30s, in Tabor’s words, “one of the glittering metropolis’s richest men” by selling paper. Searching for his “next big project,” Field had a chance encounter with Frederic Newton Gisborne, an English inventor who pitched him the idea of joining the Old and New Worlds by a telegraph line—and carrier pigeons. Gisborne had lost his shirt trying to finance the system, but perhaps Field would be interested? The “sheer improbability” of Gisborne’s proposal attracted Field. And then the millionaire had a better idea: Drop the telegraph line to the floor of the Atlantic. Brilliant, but easier said than done. As Tabor recounts, Field’s ambitious plan stretched over a dozen years, and missions to lay cable ended in disaster. Designing a cable was one thing, but sinking it 10,000 feet into the Atlantic—under extreme pressure, along jagged terrain—was another. Doing so during dangerous storms did not help. Tabor is very good at immersing the reader in the grimy world of marine industrial work: the steam engines, cogwheels, and tons of cable. The cable itself was insulated by a resin called gutta-percha, from trees in Malaysia and Indonesia. Field’s eventual success led him to be celebrated as the “new Columbus,” but as Tabor writes, his cable “remained hidden,” and fame faded. Ironically, he observes, “up to 98 percent of information travels around the planet not on satellites, as many people assume, but through fiber-optic submarine cables that are direct descendants of Field’s transatlantic forerunner.” A lively and electrifying account of the little-remembered ‘miracle’ that connected continents. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.