The Cruise Ship Phenomenon in North America [Hardcover]

Brian J. Cudahy (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 366 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Maritime Pr/Tidewater Pub; First Edition edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870335294
• ISBN-13: 978-0870335297
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,493,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brian Cudahy was born in Brooklyn, New York, and it was there that he developed a life-long fascination with subway trains. His first professional career was as a professor of philosophy, and he held positions on the faculoty of both Niagara University and Boston College. Cudahy left the academic world in the mid-1970s and spent the rest of his career working in the field of mass transportation, first with Boston's MBTA, then with the RTA in Chicago, and finally with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

He has published widely in two areas of transportation ... urban mass transit and maritime history. When Fordham University Press celebrated its centennial in 2007, Cudahy's history of the New York subways, "Under the Sidewalks of New York," was cited as one of the Press' ten best sellers during its first hundred years.

Brian Cudahy retired in 1999 and currently lives near Hilton Head, South Carolina. Watch out, though! One of these days, readers may be able to get an inside look at urban mass transit in America through Cudahy's first work of fiction, a book that will bear the title "Foggarty's Heart Attack."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing research not found elsewhere, June 26, 2005

By 

Lisa Shea "medieval swordfighting enthusiast" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cruise Ship Phenomenon in North America (Hardcover)

If you are a cruiser, this is definitely a book for you to buy or at least borrow from your library. It has EVERYTHING you could ever want to know about cruising history.

First, to be clear, this is NOT a review of which cruise ships have pools and which have nice restaurants. Instead, this book talks about the history of cruising, and gives you background on the various cruise ships in operation. You learn really cool stories about how the cruise ship lines formed, and hear stories about individual ships and what has happened to them over the years.

The book is hard cover and HUGE. It's about 360 pages of dense information. I had a real blast reading it. There's a story about the Norwegian Majesty, about how it was running on GPS autopilot in 1995 heading back from Bermuda to Boston. The crew figured it was OK and didn't bother to look out the window at all. The next thing they knew, the ship was grounded on a shoal near Nantucket.

The book has a giant appendix full of histories of all the ships. It is really fascinating to learn how frequently ships are traded from line to line, and just what they were originally built for. Some cruise ships began their lives as car ferries, and then were rearranged to handle passengers.

If there's any detraction, it's that the author seems a little fascinated with the type of funnel (smokestack) on the ships and the type of propulsion system :) But hey, we all have our little quirks. If that's what he enjoys, that's fine with me! I might have liked a little more detail about what the ships were like inside, but you can get that from plenty of other sources. As far as base history of the ships that we love, there really is no other book that comes anywhere close to this one.

Well recommended!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, March 14, 2004

By 

L. Dunkelman "larrydunk" (White Plains, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cruise Ship Phenomenon in North America (Hardcover)

As you can imagine from the title, this book is for people who are fascinated with cruise ships or the industry and have a penchant for details. Not everyone needs to know that the Carnival Destiny was the largest cruise ship afloat- for less than a year. If you do though, this book is for you. There is equal parts of the history of each of the major cruise lines and the history of the ships they own and operate. The chapter near the end about the construction process is fascinating. If you are looking for tipping guidelines for the wait staff you have the wrong book. If you want to be the only person on your cruise that knows where you ship was built and its propulsion system, this book is a must.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Complete History of all Major Cruise Lines, January 17, 2004

By 

Andreas Horn - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cruise Ship Phenomenon in North America (Hardcover)

Mr. Cudahy's book is a historical review of the development which started in the late sixties. He covers the history of all major cruise lines (Carnival, RCI, Princess, NCL, HAL, Cunard and Seabourn, Celebrity and some others) in much detail. Even cruise lines which have left the trade are mentioned, like Admiral Cruises or Commodore Cruise Line for instance.
Other chapters deal with fleet management, the building of cruise ships or environmental regulations. The information given here is rather superficial. I wonder, whom the book is adressed to? The historian, the cruise insider, the experienced passenger, the potential passenger the travel agents or the ship buffs?
I miss some information on how the cruise lines are positioned in the market and if they succeeded in getting the image anticipated. Mr. Cudahy only mentions the facts, visible to anybody observing the cruise market. Any reasons for this PHENOMENON to happen are not given. This costs one star of the rating.
A very extensive Appendix A (almost 100 pages - out of 366) gives technical details on ALL cruise ships (past and present).
Rather strange is Appendix B in which the location of 156 vessels at high noon on July 4, 2000 is mentioned (Example: Carinval Triumph: At sea, 7-night western Caribbean cruise from Miami). Does that make sense?
The rather limited number of pictures (all b/w) and the poor quality of the paper (the pictures have almost no contrast) resulted in the loss of another star.

The book can only be recommeded to people who are interested in the facts of the historic development of the cruise industry in North America.