Customer Reviews

The Golden Age of Ocean Liners (Golden Age of Transportation)

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

 

 

I'm an ocean liner buff, and pretty much a historian in my own way, and I have a large collection of Ocean Liner books, including this one. All I can say about it, is that it is fine, it's just a run of the mill book, with no real peaks or flaws. The one part I like about the book is the large pictures. I'm also an artist who focuses on ships and landscapes, and I have done pastel and charcol works of many of the ships in the book. I can notice many flaws though, nothing serious, but they're there. I think this may have to do with the fact that this book is from a whole collection of transportation books (The Golden Age of Steam, and The Golden Age of Aviation) and so the author was most likely not an ocean liner historian. I do think, though, this is a good book to use to get younger children interested in ocean liners, with large pictures, and fairly easy to read linear notes, a good book for our future Liner Historians!

Either we should expect to see a descriptive book about Ocean Liners (which this book is certainly not!) or we should expect to find a pictorial overview of the subject. This books misses both targets.

Some other titles by this author include subjects as diverse as; France, Tigers, Robert Mitchum and Sharks. Now we have his offering on the subject of Ocean Liners. Having also studied and reviewed Mr Server's book on Sharks (in which I said "I don't think he's ever seen a live shark in his life!"), this author gives the clear impression he is out to write as many books as possible - with the minimum of information. In so doing, he attempts to fool the reader by including some (but only some!) excellent photographs.

The key to any book about ships is research, research and even more research. Not a concept this author appears to understand.

NM

A low quality work with numerous gross inaccuracies and insufficient narrative. Most of its information seems to come from the works of William Miller. The color illustrations (period posters, advertising materials and sketches) and black & white photos are the highlight of the book, even though most labels do not tell which ship is pictured.

A short, but colorful and informative introduction to the subject. The text is written in a lively, lyrical style. I found the section on luxury liners in movies and books quite interesting. An overview not a study in depth, but well done.

A definite buy for a few dollars for the pictures alone, but I have never read a book before or since (I bought the item in 1990) that contained so many factual errors. Several captions for the phtographs were obviously written for melodramatic effect rather than any attempt at veracity.