THE LUSITANIA: The Life, Loss, and Legacy of an Ocean Legend

Rating:
Summary: a good history lesson
Review: A note to readers -- the first half of this book is more of a chronicle of WW I than an account of the Lusitania. If you're just a disaster buff, you'll probably like the Titanic stories better than this. The author explains in his final note that he deliberately focused on the historical context and meaning of this event rather than the minutia of the sinking itself (as he does in his Titanic book). I personally enjoyed the WWI refresher. There are still many unanswered questions about the ship's death -- did Churchill deliberately let it be struck to draw the US into battle? We may never know. The author does a nice job of putting this event in context. The sinking chapters are shorter than you'd think (heck, the ship went down in 18 minutes) but there is a lot of juicy background stuff here.

Rating:
Summary: a good history lesson
Review: A note to readers -- the first half of this book is more of a chronicle of WW I than an account of the Lusitania. If you're just a disaster buff, you'll probably like the Titanic stories better than this. The author explains in his final note that he deliberately focused on the historical context and meaning of this event rather than the minutia of the sinking itself (as he does in his Titanic book). I personally enjoyed the WWI refresher. There are still many unanswered questions about the ship's death -- did Churchill deliberately let it be struck to draw the US into battle? We may never know. The author does a nice job of putting this event in context. The sinking chapters are shorter than you'd think (heck, the ship went down in 18 minutes) but there is a lot of juicy background stuff here.

Rating:
Summary: Lusitania
Review: After putting the sinking of the Lusitania into historical context, author David Butler delineates in harrowing detail the ship's final moments, recreating for the reader a mind's eye image of what must have ocurred aboard ship during this pivotal event in world history. His description of the minute by minute efforts of the passengers to survive (the ship sank in only 18 minutes!) his 85 pages of sinking description mark a high point in this type of writing. You'll never need to read another account of a ship's sinking after "witnessing" this one! It just couldn't have been written better. A masterful job on all counts, the author is to be commended not only on his attention to the details of historical perspective, but as well to his understanding of human emotions brought to the very brink of existence. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.