Thaank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Did not finish. there was no excitement, no flow to this story. I thought it was dry and uninteresting.

The effort is obvious, but the editor ignored the need to take the whole and create a series of it all. There is just too much here to shove into one volume. The writer dodges this by constructing as many switchbacks as the train makers he writes of.

The writers politics scream through the early chapter as he decries the Quaker background of one of his subjects. Then tacks a purpose to the same subject for joining the civil war, again, demeaning his faith. But his being a spy infiltrating the Confederates and escape from a Confederate prison made him a "hero". Nothing is given to back this up, except a writing style that the writer wanted the subject to be of the writer's thinking. Later there is mentioned "gentler characteristics" that could be attributed to his Quaker upbringing, instead stated without attribution.

Writes of capitalism with distate and that, one of his central figures, Palmer was doing it for the community and not capitalism. Of course, none of the idea of Palmer's altruism is connected to the very central core of being a Quaker. Then Sedgwick procedes to point out how much Palmer planned to expand his train into Mexico and California and the world....which would make Palmer more of a capitalistic than the other figure.

Sedgwick adds far too much editorial adjectives and asides revealing his political view and his effort to make the reader see that view, instead of a straight, factually based writing.

AS the book plows on this vast subject, the writer sheds the political views to get into the shenanigans the two antagonists are maneuvering for success of their different goals. The author does a fine job here laying out this rather complicated story. I do believe this book should have been cut into separate portions. The author is piling a ton in and indicates knowing more. If the editing had been better, none of that should have been obvious. Nonetheless, if the writer has that much information, why not create one volume of one and another for the other? Possibly a third to string it all together. There are a few others included the author provides extensive narrative of. Would love to read a separate book where so much information would create a fascinating tale.

Passing the politics, that appear again a few times, and the clunky length begging for more space, this is an enlightening book taking in more than other books have covering this story.
Per chance, i picked up a fictional western book by the William Johnstone group that covers this same territory in 250-odd pages and, though fictional & melodramatic, does a better job getting the story across than this does.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 6 out of 10 points.

Note: I got to read an advanced version of this book via NetGalley.com. The final version published could be different.

You can read my published review at Shelf Awareness:
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=1031#m18000

Have you ever had a book that you were excited about, but failed to capture your interest?
This is my experience with John Sedgwick’s newly released From the River to the Sea: The Untold Story of the Railroad War That Made the West. I love American history, and the premise is promising: two railroad barons ignite a rivalry that created the American West as it now is. Los Angeles was even transformed into a major city within a matter of months because of the inexpensive railroad tickets produced by the rivalry. It’s fascinating.

Then why wasn’t the book fascinating?

I’ve struggled with this, as I’m sure many reviewers do from time to time. Usually, my issues with a particular book arise from the arguments it makes, especially if the author is twisting history or another group’s beliefs to suit his or her purposes. None of that applies here. Sedgwick has (as far as I can tell) done a great job of uncovering the history of this facet of the American West. I have no doubts about that.
But another important factor in a history book is how the story is told. I don’t want to discredit the author for not adequately doing this, as it’s possible the fault is partially mine. My particular preferences in non-fiction reading may just not line up with this book for some reason. But I’ve read a lot of historical nonfiction, and I’ve never had quite this problem before, so I’m going to lay out what I’ve perceived might be the problem with this one. Maybe I’ll convince you to give it a try yourself, or maybe I’ll help you ditch a book the next time you see these same problems in one. (I didn’t ditch From the River to the Sea, because I held out hope it would turn around. There are books I’ve ditched before, and I don’t review them.) Either way, I hope I can help you as a reader.

I think the major problem with From the River to the Sea is one of character development. The two major players are both railroad barons, both white, both roughly the same age. From the beginning, this made it tough to connect to the story. What separates these two people? Anything? Yes, their stories are a little different. One was a General in the Army, the other wasn’t, and this is the author’s chief way of distinguishing between the two. In a book medium, where the visual cues are minimal (yes, there are photographs interspersed, and maybe that would have helped more if I weren’t reading on a Kindle), distinguishing between the two main characters is crucial. Should I care about one over the other? If not, what makes their motivations different? What makes them different, as people? I didn’t feel like that question was ever adequately answered, so I kept flipping back trying to remind myself if General Palmer was the boss of the Santa Fe Railroad or the Rio Grande.

More generally, I wished for more humanity in From the River to the Sea. Westerns are a movie genre I admittedly don’t particularly care for, but the best of them touch on themes of humanity. They pack an emotional punch. I had no reason to care for Palmer or Strong. To me, they were both men who wanted to make money and had no deep ties to family or friends. Maybe that’s what happens in a lawless society that loses the concept of religion, family, and friends. In a society that is only for economic gain, humanity is lost. In chasing the almighty dollar, we lose our souls. Actually, I know this is true. But our books don’t have to mirror that loss.

If you want to find where I went wrong, by all means, read From the River to the Sea. I’m just here to tell you that I didn’t like it when I really feel like I should have. Humans deserve to be full people, and maybe Palmer and Strong really weren’t. Maybe they lost their humanity along the way. If that’s true, it’s a tragedy, and I could vibe with a narrative that leaned into such a tragedy. As I interpreted it, From the River to the Sea isn’t that.
I received a review copy From the River to the Sea courtesy of Simon & Schuster and NetGalley, but my opinions are my own.

My review of From the River to the Sea appeared on Ricochet and Lobsterforest today.. You can read it here: :https://ricochet.com/974479/a-tale-of-a-real-shooting-railroad-war/ and here: https://lobsterforest.com/this-weeks-book-review-from-the-river-to-the-sea/

I ended up being kind of disappointed in this book. There were so many long side stories and tangents that I often lost track of the main story and why the individuals/places we were getting a side story on were important to the main storyline. The two railroad men, Palmer and Strong, spent their time trying to outdo each other, and race for the best routes - often with extremes like building stone forts along the routes and hiring armed posses to keep the other side from working. Their irrational behavior is so identical there are times when it is easy to confuse the two railroads and Sedgwick regularly lets readers know he agrees the men are being identically ridiculous. While bringing railroads west, through Colorado and eventually to California created fascinating changes to the country that I enjoyed reading about, overall I found this book too much of a slog to get through to really enthusiastically recommend to anyone.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review