The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough

I really loved this book. The personalities that moved mountains (literally) and country's (France and the U.S.)  fortunes are vividly recreated in a time when recent strides in science and engineering made the triumph of Man's designs over Nature within reach. Truly an epic tale of one of the greatest engineering feats of modern times.