With the drama of detective fiction, How Wall Street Created a Nation illustrates how a combination of financial gain and arrogant American imperialism culminated in the building of the Panama Canal. Ovidio Diaz Espino has artfully pieced together the tale of a dark alliance of greed between the bankrupt French Panama Canal Company and a secret syndicate of Wall Street financiers. With the full force of Teddy Roosevelt's Wall Street cabal and his gunboat diplomacy behind it, there was no stopping the canal project despite the objections of the American Congress and press. Espino brings a combination of financial acumen, historical expertise, and Latin American sensibility to this book.