{"product_id":"9780385658409","title":"The National Dream","description":"In 1871, a tiny nation, just four years old—it's population well below the 4 million  mark—determined that it would build the world's longest railroad across empty country,  much of it unexplored. This decision—bold to the point of recklessness—was to  change the lives of every man, woman and child in Canada and alter the shape of the  nation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Using primary sources—diaries, letters, unpublished manuscripts, public  documents and newspapers—Pierre Berton has reconstructed the incredible decade  of the 1870s, when Canadians of every stripe—contractors, politicians, financiers,  surveyors, workingmen, journalists and entrepreneurs—fought for the railway, or  against it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe National Dream\u003c\/i\u003e is above all else the story of people. It is the  story of George McMullen, the brash young promoter who tried to blackmail the Prime  Minister; of Marcus Smith, the crusty surveyor, so suspicious of authority he thought  the Governor General was speculating in railway lands; of Sanford Fleming, the great  engineer who invented Standard Time but who couldn't make up his mind about the best  route for the railway. All these figures, and dozens more, including the political  leaders of the era, come to life with all their human ambitions and failings.","brand":"Pierre Berton (CA)","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":46458917257428,"sku":"9780385658409","price":26.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/9208\/files\/BNCImageAPI_fcee5ed8-44e5-4e5b-b6db-e4373a083193.jpg?v=1751573283","url":"https:\/\/penguinshop.ca\/products\/9780385658409","provider":"Penguin Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}