The Relative Nature of Success and Failure – Function of Time and Context

In this paper, we study three long-term projects, with a life cycle of several centuries, where the environment and the economic conditions change: as well as the borders and the political regimes of the countries, the behaviours and the aspirations of men, the daily life and the perception of the world. For these large projects, their life cycle, including the classic stages of beginning, maturity and completion, the end may be far away... but sometimes it already gives an idea of the outcome of the project. To show the relativity of their success and failure, we have chosen to evoke three large projects of the same nature: whose failure or success can be appreciated nowadays. We will first study, respecting the chronology, the oldest waterway, the Canal du Midi, the most important large project of the 17th century (1667-1682), which was a success as long as it enjoyed a natural monopoly. We will then evoke the Suez Canal, which was a success, and which remains so (1859-1869). Finally, we will study the Panama Canal, which was a resounding failure under the French government (1881-1903), but which later became an undisputed success when completed by the Americans (1904-1914). Many factors have modified the destiny of these great projects, and we will try to analyze them. For these three projects, we have used archives and testimonies somewhat forgotten in time, which raises our second objective – to inform and communicate the existence of these resources because their volume requires much more effort than ours.