Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific

Daggett's 1922 study remains a foundational text on railroad monopoly and Western American economic history, and its focus on the business and regulatory dimensions rather than heroic construction lore gives it real scholarly staying power. The problem is accessibility — the prose is a century old, later scholarship has built on and superseded much of it, and modern reprints add nothing new. Researchers will find it worth hunting down; general readers will struggle to stay engaged.