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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. The cream of the crop of 19th-century French engineers are trained at what two institutions (the most brilliant at the former, and only its top graduates at the latter)?

2. What other term or phrase describes Phillippe Banau-Varilla besides bold, vain, personable, energetic, practical, and brilliant?

3. The liquidator's ordering a halt to work on the Isthmus instigates what among workers and shareholders?

4. In late 1879, a large entourage sails to Panama arriving in what season?

5. Ferdinand de Lesseps lost a son and a wife to cholera in Egypt and invests $7.1 million in hospitals that a Canadian doctor declares the best in the tropics, and an American, decades later, places where?

Short Essay Questions

1. What transpires when newspaper headlines proclaim the "Great Canal Crash" to readers around the world?

2. What is the result of Gaston Blanchet's proposal for a 400' wide swath to ease surveying?

3. What takes place in Havana, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War of 1898 that encourages Theodore Roosevelt in his zeal for a canal in Central America?

4. What are the reasons Admiral Ammen opposes the official U.S. plan?

5. What is the most important committee, and how does Ferdinand de Lesseps steer it?

6. What increases the impetus to build a canal, and why?

7. Who is Rear Adm. John Grimes Walker?

8. How does the press report the situation three weeks subsequent to the fire destroying Colon?

9. Why is it yellow fever causes instant panic in comparison to other tropical diseases?

10. How is the work organized under the French?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

You have been invited to attend the 1879 Congris International d'Ytudes du Canal Interocyanique in Paris for a week. Things get a little heated. But you are maintaining a personal log that includes where you go, what you do, activities at the conference, and so on. Make a paper consisting of five to six log entries.

Essay Topic 2

The author notes that, despite Theodore Roosevelt's opinion to the contrary, he comes out having played a minor part in Panama's revolution. Is there any evidence of collusion or master strategy in the White House? How much knowledge does the President have as the plot unfolds? Is the President correct in his view that the Colombian position regarding the treaty is nothing but a "holdup"? Could an amicable solution have been achieved in a reasonable time period? What of the position that Roosevelt's "most important action" ensures Colombia will be financially destroyed, being stripped of what is most valuable to it?

Essay Topic 3

Dr. William Crawford Gorgas is the U.S. Army's foremost expert on tropical diseases when he is assigned to Panama. Where does he receive his training and his experience? From whom does he gain cooperation at Panama, and from whom does he encounter opposition? What are his biggest medical battles? What sorts of problems and why? What successes does he achieve in Panama? How long is he assigned to Panama?

(see the answer keys)

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