Friday, March 2, 2012

Voyagers of the Titanic: Passengers, Sailors, Shipbuilders, Aristocrats, and the Worlds They Came From-Richard Davenport-Hines

Voyagers of the Titanic: Passengers, Sailors, Shipbuilders, Aristocrats, and the Worlds They Came From


Richard Davenport-Hines

Morrow, Mar 6 2012, $26.99

ISBN: 9780061876844



This is a refreshing different spin to the Titanic tragedy as Richard Davenport-Hines provides an insightful look at the motives of the various classes on board with an emphasis on why they were on the vessel. The author divides the nonfiction into three parts: “On Land”, “At Sea” and “Life and death”. Inside each part, Mr. Hines further divides into chapters with an emphasis on five categories: sailors, crew and passengers (further divided into first, second and third class) though there is also insight into ship-owners and builders as part of the pre-sailing “On Land”. Thus readers obtain a wonderful series of biographies on not just the rich and famous on board, but on those like chattel in steerage, the crew working in unbearable heat, and the shipbuilder Lord Pirrie and owner Pierpont Morgan. The Edwardian values led men to choose honorable death so that their women can live; but ironically the women unused to going alone were too afraid to leave without their men; thus unfilled lifeboats deployed leaving many unnecessarily to die. The doomed voyage symbolizes wake of Edwardian society (with WWI being the burial).



Harriet Klausner

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