Customer Reviews

Anatomy of the Titanic

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book will prove to be a treasure trove for the experienced Titanic scholar, but is guaranteed to lead the newcomer astray. Many photos are of the sisterships Olympic and Britannic and some of the deck plans are of a much-modified Olympic, as these plans were updated throughout the ship's career, which lasted into the mid-1930's. None of this would present much of a problem for the experienced buff, but many of the photo captions do not alert the novice to these differences. In some cases, features depicted represent changes made to Britannic as a result of Titanic's loss. In one photo taken bow-on and captioned as Titanic, the name "Olympic" can be clearly read on both sides of the vessel. In another case, several photos are purported to be of the casing for the turbine; the photos are, in fact of the huge wooden patterns used to make the molds for these castings. The color section in the book's midsection shows hand- colored illustrations made by interior designers of a ship's interior which is supposed to be of similar design to those on Olympic and Titanic. While the reproductions of these illustrations are a welcome insight into the efforts involved in the creation of the interiors of ships of this period, the designs portrayed bear only a vague resemblance to those of the subject of this book. The thing that disappoints this reader most is that I would have expected better from this particular author, giving his past relationship with Harland and Wolff, the firm which built the Titanic, the author's knowledge on the subject and the enviable access which he had to that firm's archives. Even so, I still stand by my opinion that this book is a must-have for anyone with more than a passing interest in the Titanic.

This is an very good book on the building of the TITANIC. It had a few stumblings by showing pictures of the RMS Olympic and the HMHS Britannic(my favorite). Their weren't many pictures taken at the era so we can't blame Mr. McCluskie

Although this book is filled with pictures of Titanics earlier sister Olympic, You get an ideal of what Titanic looked like before, during, and after construction. You'll see the ship from bow to stern and from keel to the funnels through many sharp black and white photographs taken at Harland & Wolff. Be warned though this book does get into some pretty technical terms and I advise you to read the glossary first. This book was very good at telling the details of the structure, but could have gone into a little more details about the staterooms and other passenger areas.

This is the best book if you want images of staterooms. There is also a part with some of the original drawings of light fig. and rooms.

This book is good for one thing only and that is its pictures of the Olympic and Titanic's staterooms. This rest is a muddle of information on the 3 sister ships that can't define the difference between the three.VERY BAD EDITING.

For once, a book that doesn't bore us with chapter after chapter about the events of April 14th, but rather concentrates on the ship itself. While some areas could have been done in more detail, I was extremely pleased with the quality to price ratio.

Despite flaws and a few mistakes this book is a superb refurence on the Titanic. Lots of photoes. Some from her sister ships but none the less they no dought would be comperable to those of Titanic.

One flaw. Fails to provide information on lifeboats.

Definitely good value for the money, although the author makes some unaccountable errors; there are at least 2 photos of Britannic captioned as being Titanic and a couple shots of wooden patterns for Olympic's turbine engine captioned as being the engine itself; these are so obvious I'm suprised McCluskie missed them. As other reviewers here have pointed out a lot of the shots are of Olympic; in many of the photos an easy way to tell which shots are of what is to look for hull numbers stenciled on the parts. Anything numbered 400 is from Olympic, 401 is Titanic, and 433 is Britannic. Not a perfect book, but a useful addition to anyone's Titanic collection.

This was a nice book but wasn't like I was expecting. A lot of the photos weren't even of titanic and some of the ones that said they were, were in also not titanic. I was expecting a more technical stuff. I am not trashing the book just disappointes is all.