The Ship of Dreams by Gareth Russell

The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era

If you know me, you know about my love and fascination with Titanic. My grandmother was 4 when the ship sank, living in Arkansas, and when I was a kid, I remember wondering about the time period in which she grew up and what an event like the ship’s sinking might have been like at that time for children and families who weren’t on that boat. Fast forward to present and I’m still just as fascinated with the sinking and the aftermath as an adult, maybe even more so now that my grandmother has passed on and I think about her and the life she lived. For me, this is a highly anticipated read. I’ve seen every documentary that has aired about Titanic in recent years and read many a book around it. This one sounds vastly interesting, and I love that it discusses the end of the Edwardian Era.

ABOUT THE BOOK

 

THE SHIP OF DREAMS

The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era

Gareth Russell

In this original and meticulously researched narrative history, the author of the “stunning” (The Sunday Times) Young and Damned and Fair uses the sinking of the Titanic as a prism through which to examine the end of the Edwardian era and the seismic shift modernity brought to the Anglo-American world. 

In April 1912, six notable people were among those privileged to experience the height of luxury—first class passage on “the ship of dreams,” the RMs Titanic: Lucy Leslie, Countess of Rothes; son of the British Empire, Tommy Andrews; American captain of industry John Thayer and his son Jack; Jewish-American immigrant Ida Straus; and American model and movie star Dorothy Gibson. Within a week of setting sail, they were all caught up in the horrifying disaster of the Titanic’s sinking, one of the biggest news stories of the century. Today, we can see their stories and the Titanic’s voyage as the beginning of the end of the established hierarchy of the Edwardian era.

Writing in his elegant signature prose and using previously unpublished sources, deck plans, journal entries, and surviving artifacts, Gareth Russell peers through the portholes of these first-class travelers to immerse us in a time of unprecedented change in British and American history. Through their intertwining lives, he examines social, technological, political, and economic forces such as the nuances of the British class system, the explosion of competition in the shipping trade, the birth of the movie industry, the Irish Home Rule Crisis, and the Jewish-American immigrant experience while also recounting their intimate stories of bravery, tragedy, and selflessness.

Masterful in its superb grasp of the forces of history, gripping in its moment-by-moment account of the sinking, revelatory in discounting long-held myths, and lavishly illustrated with color and black and white photographs, this absorbing, accessible, and authoritative account of the Titanic’s life and death is destined to become the definitive book on the subject.

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Author: Gareth Russell

Genre: History, Nonfiction

Publisher/Imprint: Atria Books

Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages

Publication Date: November 19th, 2019