Many books are about something that happened ... Lepler's intriguing study is about something that didn't. There is no canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via Nicaragua. But it certainly was not for a lack of effort by nineteenth century dreamers, government officials, and charlatans. Lepler has done a lot of deep investigatory work in multiple archives on multiple continents, and I was patricianly grateful for the close attention that she paid to the mechanics of diplomacy during a time when slow communication meant that people in the field had much more leeway to execute plans.