Explaining the Obsession with the Panama Canal

To say there’s a lot going on right now is an understatement. One area where I can offer some clarity, thanks to Professor Julie Greene, is Panama.

Professor Greene, a labor historian at the University of Maryland, is the author of The Canal Builders, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2009, and most recently, Box 25: Archival Secrets, Caribbean Workers, and the Panama Canal. She details the experiences of the people who built the Panama Canal and how American officials, despite enforcing a system of racial segregation and exploitation, draped the project in triumphant imagery. “More than any other project in U.S. history,” Professor Greene told me, “the canal symbolized American beneficence, a selfless gift to world civilization.” That perception still shapes how the canal is remembered today.