A groundbreaking, breathtaking history of the Chinese workers who built the Transcontinental Railroad, helping to forge modern America only to disappear into the shadows of history until now.

Essays examining the Chinese worker experience during the construction of America’s Transcontinental Railroad. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in May 1869 is usually told as a story of national triumph and a key moment for American Manifest Destiny. The Railroad made it possible to cross the country in a matter of days instead of months, paved the way for new settlers to come out west, and helped speed America’s entry onto the world stage as a modern nation that spanned a full continent. It also created vast wealth for its four owners, including the fortune with which Leland Stanford would found Stanford University some two decades later. But while the Transcontinental has often been celebrated in national memory, little attention has been paid to the Chinese workers who made up 90 percent of the workforce on the Western portion of the line. The Railroad could not have been built without Chinese labor, but the lives of Chinese railroad workers themselves have been little understood and largely invisible. This landmark volume explores the experiences of Chinese railroad workers and their place in cultural memory. The Chinese and the Iron Road illuminates more fully than ever before the interconnected economies of China and the US, how immigration across the Pacific changed both nations, the dynamics of the racism the workers encountered, the conditions under which they labored, and their role in shaping both the history of the railroad and the development of the American West. Praise for The Chinese and the Iron Road “This timely and essential volume preserves the humanity of the often-ignored and forgotten immigrant worker, while also uncovering just how important Chinese American railroad workers were in the making of America and its place in the world.” —Erika Lee, author of The Making of Asian America “Gordon H. Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin’s meticulously researched and beautifully written book fills [a] critical gap in our nation’s history. The Chinese and the Iron Road brings to life the stories of workers who defied incredible odds and gave their lives to unite these states into a nation.” —David Henry Hwang, Tony Award–winning playwright of The Dance and the Railroad and M. Butterfly “Destined to become the go-to resource about Chinese railroad workers in the American West.” —Madeline Hsu, author of The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority “Deeply researched and richly detailed, The Chinese and the Iron Road brings to life the Chinese immigrants whose work was essential to the railroad’s construction.” —Thomas Bender, author of A Nation Among Nations: America’s Place in World History

As a vehicle to convey both the history of modern China and the complex forces still driving the nation’s economic success, rail has no equal. Railroads and the Transformation of China is the first comprehensive history, in any language, of railroad operation from the last decades of the Qing Empire to the present. China’s first fractured lines were built under semicolonial conditions by competing foreign investors. The national system that began taking shape in the 1910s suffered all the ills of the country at large: warlordism and Japanese invasion, Chinese partisan sabotage, the Great Leap Forward when lines suffered in the “battle for steel,” and the Cultural Revolution, during which Red Guards were granted free passage to “make revolution” across the country, nearly collapsing the system. Elisabeth Köll’s expansive study shows how railroads survived the rupture of the 1949 Communist revolution and became an enduring model of Chinese infrastructure expansion. The railroads persisted because they were exemplary bureaucratic institutions. Through detailed archival research and interviews, Köll builds case studies illuminating the strength of rail administration. Pragmatic management, combining central authority and local autonomy, sustained rail organizations amid shifting political and economic priorities. As Köll shows, rail provided a blueprint for the past forty years of ambitious, semipublic business development and remains an essential component of the PRC’s politically charged, technocratic economic model for China’s future.

Over the past decade, China has built 25,000 km of dedicated highspeed railway—more than the rest of the world combined. What can we learn from this remarkable experience? China’s High-Speed Rail Development examines the Chinese experience to draw lessons for countries considering investing in high-speed rail. The report scrutinizes the planning and delivery mechanisms that enabled the rapid construction of the high-speed rail system. It highlights the role of long-term planning, consistent plan execution, and a joint venture structure that ensures active participation of provincial and local governments in project planning and financing. Traffic on China’s high-speed trains has grown to 1.7 billion passengers a year. The study examines the characteristics of the markets for which high-speed rail is competitive in China. It discusses the pricing and service design considerations that go into making high-speed rail services competitive with other modes and factors such as good urban connectivity that make the service attractive to customers. One of the most remarkable aspects of the Chinese experience is the rapid pace of high-quality construction. The report looks at the role of strong capacity development within and cooperation among China Railway Corporation, rail manufacturers, universities, research institutions, laboratories, and engineering centers that allowed for rapid technological advancement and localization of technology. It describes the project delivery structures and incentives for delivering quality and timely results. Finally, the report analyzes the financial and economic sustainability of the investment in high-speed rail. It finds that a developing country can price high-speed rail services affordably and still achieve financial viability, but this requires very high passenger density. Economic viability similarly depends on high passenger density.

Lustgarten's book is a timely and provocative account of China's unstoppable quest to build a railway into Tibet, and the nation's obsession to transform its land and its people.