Article
Book Review: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
International Journal of Maritime History
(2018)
Abstract
The St. Lawrence Seaway has to be one of the most over-sold and underbuilt navigation projects in maritime history. Formally opened in 1959 to great fanfare by President Dwight Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, the series of dams and locks of the waterway were supposed to open the heartland of North America to the shipping of the world. Economists predicted ‘an unprecedented boom of industrial expansion’ for Canada and the American Midwest. One publication went on to predict for the city of Chicago alone 890,000 new high-paying industrial jobs. Scarcely less enthusiastic was the praise heaped upon the waterway as an engineering marvel. The Queen declared it ‘one of the outstanding engineering accomplishments of modern times’. More than a half century later, because of its too small locks and the emergence of container ships, the waterway is generally regarded as an economic failure for the Great Lakes region. Now Dan Egan has thoroughly demonstrated what an environmental disaster the Seaway has been.
Disciplines
Publication Date
February 1, 2018
DOI
10.1177/0843871417738490j
Citation Information
Theodore J. Karamanski. "Book Review: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes" International Journal of Maritime History Vol. 30 Iss. 1 (2018) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/theodore_karamanski/41/