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In her new book 鈥溾�� (UNC Press, 2025), associate professor of history Jessica Lepler tells the story of a little-known quest to unite the world by building a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Central American isthmus. With dreams substituting for data, an international cast of politicians, lawyers, philosophers, and capitalists sent competing agents on a race to transform Lake Nicaragua, the San Juan River, and the terra incognita of Central American forests into the world鈥檚 first global waterway.

鈥淚n the 1820s, almost a century before the opening of the Panama Canal, 听Nicaragua looked a more promising site for the world鈥檚 greatest oceanic shortcut. The San Juan River runs from Lake Nicaragua, one of the world鈥檚 largest freshwater lakes, to the Caribbean Sea,鈥� says Lepler. 鈥淎lthough the canal was not constructed, the quest鈥檚 consequences contribute to the world today.鈥�