276. The Biggest Corruption Scandal in French History (Part 4)

Empire

Goalhanger

History

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How was George Eiffel of the Eiffel Tower involved in a huge corruption scandal associated with the Panama Canal? How many workers died during the French attempt to build the canal? And who was Bunau-Varilla and how did this smooth-talking moustache-wielding French engineer manage to sweet talk the US government to back his plan? Anita and William are joined once again by Matthew Parker, author of Hell’s Gorge: The Battle To Build The Panama Canal, to discuss how French dreams were dashed when the project came crumbling down, and how one man climbed out of the rubble and charmed his way to the White House… Empire Club: Become a member of the Empire Club to receive early access to miniseries, ad-free listening, early access to live show tickets, bonus episodes, book discounts, our exclusive newsletter, and access to our members’ chatroom on Discord! Head to empirepoduk.com to sign up. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com. Email: [email protected] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Anouska Lewis Executive Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community.
0:06.7	Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter,
0:12.0	sign up to Empire Club at www.empowerpod.ukuk.com.
0:32.9	Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand.
0:35.0	And me, William Durhampool.
0:41.6	And today we are joined once again by the brilliant Matthew Parker, author of Hell's Gorge.
0:45.6	It is a fabulous book to discuss the building of the Panama Canal.
0:50.9	So you might remember in the last episode, we were talking about Panama becoming part of Colombia and how the California gold rush of 1848 brought her a huge new wave of wealth
0:56.6	to the region. And the building of the Panama Railroad was almost necessitated by that rush.
1:02.9	We left you with somewhat nutty de Lesseps and his extravagant PR campaign to fund a French
1:08.9	attempt to build this canal. And his daughter struck the
1:12.7	first symbolic blow with a pickax, not to the damn site itself, but a champagne box filled with
1:19.5	dirt. And carrying on with the story, Matthew, can you introduce us to the equally unusual Frenchman
1:25.7	with an even more extraordinary moustache, please tell us
1:28.5	about Philippe Jean Banois-Varilla.
1:31.0	Okay, so he's a French engineer.
1:34.4	He's in his sort of early 20s.
1:37.0	He went to the elite engineering school in Paris, where you wear a uniform, and the motto is
1:43.2	La Patri, Les Sience, El Agu la patria, the country science and glory.
1:47.8	Brilliant motto.
1:49.2	Brilliant motto.
1:49.6	So 19th century.
	...

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