writing-writer reviewed on 7/28/2011 + 46 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

There are two parts of the Titanic story: the people and the ship. Most times, those studying Titanic can focus generally on one. For me it is the people.

So when I got this book, I started reading it, worried it was going to be ALL about the ship... how she was built, how much steel was used, how much coal, etc. etc. etc.

However, Brad Masten blends just the right amount of both parts to create an exciting story as it has never been told before.

You learn about the men who dreamed her, the man who built her, and the disaster that befell her. People are continually involved in this story as is the ship. Titanic revolved around her makers... just as she dragged them to their deaths, both literally and figuratively.

After all, surviving officers found it nearly impossible to get any further in their lives as seamen.

Her owners were ridiculed and their reputations were marred... in some cases, unrightfully.

The survivors were haunted by the memory, and hounded by the knowledge that someone wished they had died if it would have saved a loved one.


Though this book seems to create this imagine of the tragedy, it concludes somewhere in left field, saying that Chatterton, Kohler, and Matson think it was the fault of Andrews, Harland and Wolf (which I don't ENTIRELY disagree with), and White Star.

It seems they don't understand the day and age of the Titanic. It WAS the newest, biggest, fanciest ocean liner ever to float on the sea. No one was sure how to build such a ship correctly as we do nowadays. Indeed, these sister ships were the guinea pigs. No one meant for it to be trial and error.

So how can you blame them as though they did?

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