Alexander Missal, a journalist in Germany, earned his Ph.D. in Anglo-American history from the University of Cologne.

The Long Road to Realization 21

Explaining the Canal Project 55

The Panama Canal in Pictures 80

The Canal Zone as an American Utopia 122

The PanamaPacific International Exposition 164

Visiting a Construction Site 197

Notes 203

Index 261

In the idealized space of the Canal, imperialism seemed benign, scientists banished disease, engineers conquered nature, and the United States imposed a middle-class social order.”—David Nye, author of Technology Matters



“Missal forcefully demonstrates that the construction of the Panama Canal was a multifaceted physical and cultural process, freighted with rich ideological meanings at the dawning of America’s Century.”—Janet Davis, University of Texas at Austin, author of The Circus Age: Culture and Society under the American Big Top



“Missal’s eloquent mission to open the Canal’s cultural locks [is] a work worthy of its new era as a thoroughly Latin American asset.”—Gavin O’Toole, Latin American Review of Books



“Provide[s] a useful vantage on the world bequeathed to us by the forces that set out to put America astride the globe nearly a century ago.”—Chris Rasmussen, Bookforum




“The utopian visions that Missal explores so well can be seen as extending far beyond the United States to the future of the world under U.S. leadership.”—Kristin Hoganson, American Historical Review




“Missal takes his readers on an evocative and illuminating journey through the world of the Panama Canal’s construction. The book is filled with ideas and insights, and it is insightfully in dialogue with the methodology of cultural history and with the (relatively) new historiography on U.S. empire building. . . . Seaway to the Future will surely interest scholars and students concerned with the history of the United States in the world.” —Julie Greene, Journal of World History