A CENTENNIAL EDITION OF THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED BESTSELLER FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1980
"A thorough, argumentative work, concentrating not on the drama of multitudinous subjective viewpoints . . . but on the verbatim testimony by witnesses." - John Updike, The New Yorker
The most scrupulous of the spate of books on the Titanic disaster and a bona fide critically acclaimed bestseller that has withstood the test of time, Wyn Craig Wade's book is a landmark in Titanic study and remains one of the two best works on the subject today with A Night to Remember. It's hard to believe that anything so well-researched can read like a novel. TITANIC: End of a Dream puts to rest many of the myths and legends with have grown around the disaster. For example, rather than single out a scapegoat (as James Cameron's "Titanic" and other book on the subject have hinted at), Wade shows that there was plenty of blame to go around.
TITANIC: End of a Dream relies on survivors' accounts to establish some startling facts, including that almost two-thirds of the first-class passengers survived while only a quarter of the steerage passengers made it to safety. And that those in the lifeboats chose to ignore the piteous cries of passengers in the water, almost all of whom perished. This chilling account demonstrates that the Titanic's sinking was in many ways entirely avoidable. He begins with Titanic leaving on its maiden voyage from Southampton, full of hope and excitement. He then quickly shifts to the scene of confusion and horror right after the sinking, when few facts were known. In the next chapters the sinking comes to life through an official Inquiry into the disaster, due to the work of a Senator from Michigan and his committee who actually met the rescue ship Carpathia in New York and served many of the notables with subpoenas. The Inquiry was held within a week of the rescue ship arriving in New York. Particularly memorable is the chapter detailing the negligence of the Californian - in reality the closest ship to the point of sinking. Therefore, Wyn's book is based on source material that was very fresh and thus gives a great read that fills in so many details that would otherwise have been lost to time and embellishment.
Titanic was truly a community afloat, with everything you might find in a small city: a government, social classes, and a sense of forward progress. As Titanic left the dock, she was almost a caricature of herself. The appropriately named ship was symbolic of the dreams and expectations of the men, women and children in 1912 prior to World War I. As they looked ahead at the brave new world they were building, Titanic reflected who they were In TITANIC: End of a Dream detail-oriented journalist Wade translates the human emotions of the Titanic sinking into modern culture. Wyn conveys what Titanic-and, more importantly, the sinking of Titanic-meant to the people of that time. If we cannot understand the impact of Titanic on the world of 1912, how can we possibly understand how Titanic integrates into our culture and thinking today?
