The remarkable story of greed, innovation and gritty determination to build a railroad connecting California to the East. Peopled by the ingenious entrepreneurs whose unscrupulous financing got the line laid, the brilliant engineers who charted the railroad's course and hurdled the geological obstacles in its way, the armies of workers who labored relentlessly on the enterprise, and the Native Americans whose lives were destroyed in its wake, The Transcontinental Railroad reveals both why the railroad was built and how it would shape the nation, while shedding light on the politics and culture of mid-19th century America.