The Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era Hardcover – Import, 19 November 2019

The title of the book is a bit misleading; it’s not really about the end of the Edwardian era. Oh, that topic is there, but it’s much more about the people on board the Titanic than the larger world whose end began with the sinking of the ship, the onset of the First World War and the death of the aristocracy. The book has been compared to a maritime Downton Abbey, and that’s an apt comparison.However, despite that and one other minor quibble, this book is fascinating, gripping, and a terrific read. The book goes into more detail about some of the theories of why the ship sank so quickly, who was/was not to blame for what happened, and other details. But those are pluses in the retelling of a story that is generally familiar to so many of us.The other quibble is that sometimes Mr. Russell goes into digressions on irrelevant topics, such as one concerning Belfast politics in the early 20th Century that in’t really part of the story. However, as noted, that’s a minor quibble, and this is a great read.

Another good book to read and very informative and interesting,

The sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 is one of the most publicized tragedies of all time.. It's a story most of us are familiar with, and the glamour and pathos never fail to fascinate. The story has been told innumerable times in print and film, and the centennial a few years ago saw a spate of new publications about it. Some might assume that there was nothing new left to say about the ship and its doomed passengers, but they would be wrong.Gareth Russell, a native of Belfast where the Titanic was built, has produced an engrossing and entertaining new account. Thoroughly researched and heavily footnoted, The Ship of Dreams is a lively read that focuses on the lives of several First Class passengers on that fateful maiden voyage: Tommy Andrews, the managing director of the Harland and Wolff shipyard where the Titanic and her sister ships were built; the Countess of Rothes, an aristocratic and intelligent woman who became a heroine of the tragedy; John Thayer, an American railroad king travelling with his wife and 17 year old son Jack; Ida Strauss, a German Jewish immigrant whose husband Isidore was a co-owner of Macy's; and Dorothy Gibson, one of the first movie stars. Besides these main characters Russell also tells the stories of many more passengers and crew members, producing the most detailed account of the ship's only voyage I have ever read. I have been something of a Titanic aficionado for many years, but The Ship of Dreams includes a lot of material about the ship's layout, furnishings, construction, and ultimate fate that I had never known before.What I found most interesting about The Ship of Dreams was the context Russell recreates. The Titanic was one of a series of behemoth ocean liners built in competition between rival shipping lines in Britain, the US, and Germany. The ship represented much that was admirable about early twentieth century industry and technology. Thus it was an impressive symbol of a world that seemed poised to move from height to height of progress without a misstep. I also appreciated Russell's debunking of many of the myths that have grown up around the Titanic over the years: the ship was not made of inferior steel or doubtful rivets; steerage passengers were not locked below decks until most of the lifeboats were full; and vilified figures like J. Bruce Ismay turn out to have been unfairly criticized for their actions on that fatal night.While Russell's book makes changes to the Titanic narrative that's been made so familiar by many retellings, the pathos and tragedy are all still present, and made even sharper by the new clarity The Ship of Dreams brings to the story.

Loved the early description of the families on the ship, and how they came to be there. That's the strength of the book. Needless verbiage on stories known to be early cases of Fake News--like the rumor Titanic had been switched with a sister ship. We don't need to waste pages on that. Also some inattentive editing, for instance "Merion" misspelled repeatedly. Gripping early on, and very informative. But I found myself looking forward to the ending--never a good sign when the subject is the Titanic!

More than twenty years ago, Steven Biel wrote that "Rumor has it that the three most written-about subjects of all time are Jesus, the Civil War, and the Titanic disaster." Yet, even after a century, the 1912 sinking is still the subject of writing and works, finding new ways to examine the disaster. One of the most recent is Gareth Russell's The Ship of Dreams (published in the UK as The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World), which offers a vision of the great ship and its passengers through the kaleidoscope of six First Class passengers.The passengers in question would make choice protagonists for a novel. They include the socialite Countess of Rothes, the ship's Irish designer Thomas Andrews (referred to here by his familiar name "Tommy"), the Pennsylvania rail tycoon John Thayer traveling with his 17-year-old son Jack, immigrant and later Macy's co-owner Ida Straus and early movie star Dorothy Gibson. Every one of them is a fascinating character in their own right from the social world and Suffragette work of the Countess and Andrews rise to the pinnacle of his profession to the colorful life and times of Gibson. Russell walks us through their lives before, during, and after those few days on the North Atlantic that changed their lives forever after, and how they became wrapped up in the Titanic myth.Russell isn't out to write a book of mythmaking, however. Drawing on some of the latest research, as well as overlooked details, a fair portion of the text sees him in the process of taking them apart, such as the notion that third-class passengers were locked below decks deliberately. Or, indeed, examining the accounts of survivors to pull apart inconsistencies, including those whose experiences he chronicles. As a book for both a popular audience and those with a keen interest in the disaster, it's something that serves it nicely.As does Russell's intent, laid out clearly at the front of the book. For all the myths and hyperbole, perhaps the Titanic didn't change the world that much. What the disaster represented, as he lays out across some 300 odd pages, was a symptom of an era drawing to a close. From Ida's husband's experiences in the American south during the Civil War timeframe to the Countess' suffragette work and Thomas Andrews' connections to the political situation in Northern Ireland, they were both tied into the old order and caught up in the rising tide of the new, even if they were unaware of it. The decisions that helped contribute to the disaster, such as the lack of lifeboats or the speed she was traveling, likewise were borne out of a way of thinking that was outdated and in need of addressing. Time would catch up with the Titanic, her passengers, and the Edwardian world that bore them both with results incredible and tragic.Perhaps April 15, 1912, wasn't when "the world of today awoke," to quote Jack Thayer later in his life, but the story of the Titanic and those who sailed upon her can tell us much about when it did. Where Russell succeeds in non-fiction prose is where Julian Fellowes (whose blurb accompanies the book's dust jacket) failed with his 2012 fiction on TV: to put the liner and its passengers in the context of a changing world. It's a side of the Titanic story that is every bit as fascinating and tragic as any work of fiction and one which Russell tells magnificently.