This one is from Richard White‘s Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (about the construction of the railroads in the late 19th century):
I wish, if only for simplicity, that I could say, for better or worse, that these tycoons dreamed modernity, built empires, and gave us the world we know. They were, however, not that smart. Many were clever enough at soliciting money and not repaying debts. The shrewdest of them were masters at controlling and manipulating information. We have their equivalents today. They were more likely to feel abused and threatened than imperious. The power they achieved traveled porous channels. It leaked away and had unexpected outcomes. These were men whose failures often mattered as much as their successes. Their inability to turn the transcontinentals into profitable businesses led them into halls of power they otherwise would never have frequented. With perhaps the exception of Gould, there is a Sorcerer’s Apprentice quality to them. They laid hands on a technology they did not fully understand, initiated sweeping changes, and saw these changes often take on purposes they did not intend.
This Sorcerer’s Apprentice quality is why I find them so interesting, and so important. They at least gesture toward one of the mysteries of modernity. How, when powerful people can on close examination seem so ignorant and inept; how, when so much work is done stupidly, shoddily, haphazardly, and selfishly; how, then, does the modern world function at all? It is no wonder that religious people see the hand of God and economists invent the invisible hand. The transcontinental railroads are sometimes fetishized as the ultimate manifestation of modern rationality, but, when seen from within, these astonishingly mismanaged railroads are the anteroom to mystery.
