“The men who united the states” is a book written by 69 year old British born author Simon Winchester. He signed for the book when he became the citizen of America. Through this book he wanted to tell everyone his feeling about U.S that how he gradually became a citizen of America by heart. He wants to tell the nation that in spite of civil wars for such a long time and despite so many hurdles how the sate remained united which is a very uncommon scenario in Canada and Russia.
The idea behind writing this book came in his mind from the astonishing fact that in spite of being a nation of different people from different places the country still remains united. He believes that the root reasons for such unity are three things: rail, road and wire. According to him the canals, railways and even radios have contributed together in building the state together and then he decided to explore those men who helped in binding these tissues thereby combining the state together till today.
His book is structured around five Chinese elements:
• Wood
• Earth
• Water
• Fire
• Metal
How did he linked these elements
Under each category he included all those people who had been related and instrumental to the various fields like:
• All these American people who are explorers comes under the category of the element wood
• Early Geologist fit into the category of earth
• People building the canals are covered under the category of water
• Fire consuming conveyance comes under fire like trains, planes, automobiles etc
• Finally telegram, telephone and radio are covered by the element metal.
Highlighted people
After realizing these elements he highlighted those people who are related to all these like Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Morse and Guglielmo Marconi. This way he not only recalls their name to the nation but also highlighted their contribution in bringing the state together. In his book he also highlighted the story of flow of AC current in the street of Great Barrington by mentioning utmost contribution of Edision, N. J in making the flow of electricity so efficient throughout the world today.
This way through this book, he has shown both his respect and love for the country as a whole. The contact for the book was restricted to 150000 words but extended to 190000 and the publisher truly liked it.