Available in paperback October 2008! The Southern Pacific of Mexico was a U.S.Ðowned railroad that operated between 1898 and 1951, running from the Sonoran town of Nogales, just across the border from Arizona, to the city of Guadalajara, stopping at several northwestern cities and port towns along the way. Owned by the Southern Pacific Company, which operated a highly profitable railroad system north of the border, the SP de Mex transported millions of passengers as well as millions of tons of freight over the years, both within Mexico and across its northern border. However, as Daniel Lewis discloses in this thoroughly researched investigation of the railroad, it rarely turned a profit. So why, Lewis wonders, did a savvy, money-minded U.S. corporation continue to operate the railroad until it was nationalized by the Mexican government more than a half-century after it was constructed? Iron Horse Imperialism reveals that the relationship between the Mexican government and the Southern Pacific Company was a complex one, complicated by MexicoÕs defeat by U.S. forces in the mid-nineteenth century and by SPÕs failure to understand that it was conducting business in a country whose leaders were ambivalent about its presence. Lewis contends that SP executives, urged on by the media of the day, operated with a reflexive imperialism that kept the company committed to the railroad long after it ceased to make business sense. Incorporating information discovered in both Mexican and American archives, some of which was previously unavailable to researchers, this comprehensive book deftly describes the complicated, decades-long dance between oblivious U.S. entrepreneurs and wary Mexican officials. It is a fascinating story.

'The first systematic economic analysis of China's prewar railway development ... provides significant contributions to the study of railroad economics ... includes a substantial case study in the field of 'imperialism' in which the effects of foreign investment in Chinese railroads are described and evaluated in great detail.' -Thomas G. Rawski

The Iron Horse

This book is illustrated. This book contains a story founded largely on facts, and is intended to illustrate some of the more salient points and interesting circumstances connected with the railway system of this kingdom. It makes no pretension whatever to give a comprehensive, much less a complete, view of a subject which, in its details, I conceive to be almost inexhaustible. To the various managers, superintendents, clerks, drivers, guards, and porters of the several railway companies from whom much of my information has been derived, I now tender my most sincere thanks for the kindness and ready assistance I have received at their hands. Edinburgh, 1871. R. M. BALLANTYNE.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln signs a bill (Pacific Railroad Act of 1 July 1862) that authorizes the construction of a transcontinental railroad. When the war ends, Davy Brandon joins the Union Pacific as a surveyor and meets Miriam, his childhood sweetheart, whose father is in charge of construction. Davy and Peter Jesson, a civil engineer, fight over Miriam; and subsequently, Miriam refuses Davy's offer of marriage. When a band of Indians, led by the renegade Deroux, attack a construction train, Davy recognizes Deroux as his father's murderer and kills him in a hand-to-hand fight. Davy then joins the Central Pacific, which is racing the Union Pacific to the center of the continent. The joining of the two railroads by the golden spike is accompanied by the union of Davy and Miriam.