The Civil War had barely ended, however, when the Old and New Worlds were united by the successful laying of a cable across the Atlantic in 1866. John Steele Gordon's book chronicles this extraordinary achievement, one of the greatest engineering feats of the nineteenth century and perhaps of all time. It was an epic struggle, requiring a decade of effort, numerous failed attempts, millions of dollars in capital, a near disaster at sea, the overcoming of seemingly insurmountable technological problems (many of them entirely unforeseen before work commenced), and uncommon physical, financial, and intellectual courage. In the end, their accomplishment literally changed the world.