The Suez Canal

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

The creation of the Suez Canal was the culmination of a dream stretching back to the pharaohs of connecting the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, but why is it so important? Right now with the canal is blocked and more closely resembles a traffic jam rather than the vital trade artery connecting the trade and the Mediterranean basin with that of the Indian Ocean and Asia it is. The canal reduces the journey between the Arabian Sea and the North Atlantic by around 5000 miles saving the massive modern cargo vessels hundreds of thousands of dollars and tons of fuel by avoiding the long route around the Cape of Good Hope. This massive shortening of the route was even more vital in the days of sail and steam. On this podcast, Dan is joined by Zachary Karabel, author of Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal; who discusses the history and construction of the canal, its lavish opening and how its existence led to imperialist expansion. Dan also talks to Kate Jamieson a maritime historian and part of the Operations team at MNG Maritime about the current implications of the closure.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit.
0:05.1	The Suez Canal is blocked everybody.
0:07.3	The sea level waterway with no locks in it that joins the Mediterranean to the Red Sea through
0:12.5	the Ithtsmus of Suez is currently a gigantic traffic jam, as that big ship is wedged across
0:21.1	it.
0:22.1	The Suez Canal was dreamed of by potentate stretching as far back as the fairers.
0:25.9	In fact, they may have even constructed some kind of canal there, possibly one linking
0:30.7	it with the Nile.
0:32.0	Clear Patra may have journeyed across this part of the world on a canal.
0:36.3	The reason everybody has wanted a canal there is to access both the trade, the wealth of
0:42.2	the Mediterranean basin and of the Indian Ocean world, the far east, both at the same time.
0:48.4	Taking the Suez Canal means you can reduce the journey between the Arabian Sea and the
0:54.7	North Atlantic by around 5,000 miles, something like 9,000 kilometers.
1:00.3	Today, going around via the Cape of Good Hope at the bottom of South Africa costs an extra
1:05.8	$350,000, assuming around a hundred tons of fuel per day.
1:12.9	So the Suez Canal is cheaper and it shaves about seven days off that trip.
1:16.7	And you can imagine the days of sale or primitive steam engines rather that the savings would
1:21.8	have been considerably more.
1:25.3	On this podcast, I'm talking to the excellent Zachary Carrebel.
1:30.6	He wrote parting the desert about the construction and history of the Suez Canal and his next
1:37.3	book is Inside Money, Bran Brothers, Haramon and the American Way of Power, which I'll be
1:41.2	getting back onto the podcast to talk about soon.
	...

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