Titanic Victims and Villains: Victims & Villains

by Senan Molony

Overview

Why is so much heroism attached to the sinking of the Titanic? Why do we accord impossible glory to the miserable, misbegotten drowining of the equivalent of a small town? What process led to the creation of champions? Who were the real heroes, and how were they overlooked? What did society - and the press - do with an overriding need for blame? By identifying the fable-making, and finally throwing off a blanket of boasting, this book enables a fresh, sharp focus on history's most famous shipwreck. We see into the nature of prejudice, public values and political and national motives. It explores the light and the dark of what we thin we know: about the engineers, the musicians, the Captain, his officers, owners and officialdom - as well as the sinking itself and society's curious 'celebration' of abject catastrophe.It also looks at sacrificial victims, in particular the character of Captain Stanley Lord of the Californian, a man tarred with abandoning fifteen hundred people to their fate.Backed up with a new photographic archive and bolstered by a series of contemporary extracts to support its arguments, this is Titanic history presented in an entirely new and authentic light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780752445700
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	04/11/2008
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

Table of Contents

Titanic

The Evil That Men Do: Nature, nostrums, and a man-made disaster 7

Comparisons are Odious: Two Managing Directors, Majors, Margarets 27

Conscience and the Captain: Responsibility returns to the ship 47

The Board and the Betrayed: Officialdom and the stable door 65

Further, Good Myth, from Thee: Musicians, engineers, and surviving crew 75

Californian

A Gleam in the Night: And other ones elsewhere 95

Shadow and Substance: The fictions in findings of fact 115

In Black and White: Reputation and demonisation 133

A Gathering Darkness: Time, the thief of truth 149

Perceptions: Phantasms and photogenics 167

Distance and Discernment: Infamy and infalliability 185

Postscript 205

Index 217