Ship of Dreams and Its Tragic End

The Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era by Gareth Russell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Much as people have been recently captivated by Downton Abbey, generations before us and since have been captivated by the unthinkable sinking of the luxury liner, The Titanic, she who was thought unsinkable. In 1912, before the world was shaken by WW I life was slow and simple. The world was dominated by England, whose empire was the one on which the sun never set. Industry was booming on both sides of the Atlantic and the hereditary nobility of Europe with its societal rules and great wealth was being joined more and more by a new level of society, the rich industrialists and business barons of the world. The pathway through which these people intermingled and intermarried was the wide Atlantic Ocean and plying that pathway were ever larger and more elegant ships, almost palaces emulating in their splendor the opulence of those of the past, the Louis of France, the villas of Rome, the palaces of the Tudors and Stuarts.
The most ballyhooed of all, the most splendid, the fastest and largest --Titanic. She never finished her maiden voyage and the loss of her in an ice field of the North Atlantic on a calm, starry night in 1912 made her, if not, unsinkable, then, unforgettable. Her discovery at the bottom of the sea in 1985 renewed her story which at the time, after great mourning on both sides of the Atlantic, had been eclipsed by the outbreak of WW I.
Here her story is told once more. And while there is a great deal of time spent on the history of the great ships, the competition among the countries of Europe and the US to outdo each other in their construction, an equal amount of time is spent on us getting to know several of her passengers in First and Second Class. Sadly, there is no member of Third Class given this insight but perhaps there were no records of these immigrants detailed enough to share. Certainly, we come to know many of the crew as well as the valets and ladies' maids of the others. By the time the ship encounters the ice berg that sank her so many of these people were so well described that as a reader you felt as though you at least knew them as acquaintance and as the time of the berg grew nearer ones heart began to ache, wondering which of them would survive and which die. The actual time of moving people into the lifeboats and the sacrifices made by many for the sake of others is anguishing.
The aftermath is also discussed-the false stories that arose and became almost fact, the distain shown the men who survived the sinking, the heartbreak of those who lost friends and family.
As much as any movie ever made about the wreck, this book brings the tragedy to life because these people are real and the story is gleaned from the memories of those who lived through it. Even after more than a hundred years, when all of the survivors are gone, the story of them and those who perished is still able to fascinate and horrify the reader. This is a review of an Uncorrected Proof provided by Goodreads for that purpose.

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