The building of the Suez Canal was considered the greatest engineering feat of the nineteenth century, but, as Zachary Karabell shows, it was much more than a marvel of construction. It was a moment when the dreams and hopes of two cultures, several states, and thousands of ordinary people converged to change the face of the earth.Parting the Desert describes an extraordinary meeting between East and West. The Egyptians hoped the canal would lead to a national renaissance and renewed power in the eastern Mediterranean. The French expected the canal to enhance world trade and advance Western civilization. Napoleon Bonaparte first raised the possibility of building a waterway during his occupation of Egypt in the late eighteenth century. The idea was kept alive by the utopian followers of Saint-Simon and was then taken up by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the energetic, ambitious French diplomat who masterminded the project.As Karabell points out, Lesseps was often in the right place at the right time, and he had the good luck of forging a friendship with the young Egyptian prince Muhammad Said. In 1854, Said became the ruler of Egypt and granted Lesseps the concession to cut a hundred-mile-long canal across the isthmus of Suez. It would take fifteen years of ceaseless effort before that dream became reality.A brilliant entrepreneur, Lesseps traveled throughout Europe and the Near East to raise support and money. He convinced thousands of ordinary French citizens to invest in the canal company, and though he never won over the British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, he did convince British merchants and businessmen that the canal would benefit them. During years ofcareful diplomacy, Lesseps neutralized the Ottoman sultan, and with the help of his cousin the Empress Eugénie, he won the backing of the emperor of France, Napoleon III.By the time the canal was completed, it had become a symbol of progress and a sign that East and West could