Customer Reviews

The Titanic Story: Hard Choices, Dangerous Decisions

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The most remarkable thing about this remarkable book is that, after all that has been written about the Titanic, someone has contributed a fresh perspective. Author Stephen Cox quiets the cacophony of finger-pointing moralizers, who so confidently distinguish heroes from villains in this tragedy, with his careful and thoughtful analysis of the ethical paradoxes associated with the event. This impartial treatment and the annotated bibliography are worth the price of admission. But the real treat is the drama of the Titanic Story. Intertwined with the factual descriptions are the excerpts from exciting eyewitness testimonies, taken primarily from the American and British inquiries after the disaster. Add to these the fascinating and poignant photographs of the people whose lives were destroyed by the Titanic, and you have a hell of a read. You will enjoy this book.

The most remarkable thing about this remarkable book is that, after all that has been written about the Titanic, someone has contributed a fresh perspective. Author Stephen Cox quiets the cacophony of finger-pointing moralizers, who so confidently distinguish heroes from villains in this tragedy, with his careful and thoughtful analysis of the ethical paradoxes associated with the event. This impartial treatment and the annotated bibliography are worth the price of admission. But the real treat is the drama of the Titanic Story. Intertwined with the factual descriptions are excerpts from exciting eyewitness testimonies, taken primarily from the American and British inquiries after the disaster. Add to these the fascinating and poignant photographs of the people whose lives were destroyed by the Titanic, and you have a hell of a read. You will enjoy this book.

This is the best revisiting of the facts that you can buy. However, I fully expected to see a lot of bad reviews here because of the book's originality. Independent research and independent thinking have led the book's author to some controversial conclusions. If you read this with an open, critical mind, some little thought bubbles full of Titanic preconceptions will burst.

The Titanic Story is a slender book, the kind that offers entree to the field at the cost of a single Sunday afternoon, but it -- like the story itself -- is "inexhaustible," and merits more than one reading. It has something to offer everyone interested in the story of the Titanic, whatever their familiarity with the facts.

Everyone knows how the maiden voyage of the Titanic ended. It's so much a part of cultural literacy, Cox argues, that the real essence of the story -- the people who were involved and their complex choices -- has been lost. The Titanic Story offers an alternative interpretation of the event, courageously treating the victims of the disaster as people instead of moral archetypes, and showing how they, as individuals, were subject to the timeless challenges of being human.

His argument is compelling. After reading the Titanic Story, one is likely to agree with Cox that the Titanic disaster not only deserves, but in fact needs, to be apprehended as a complex human drama. Viewing it this way re-establishes the individuality of the victims, and draws them off the drab, flat canvas that popular history has confined them to. Cox reminds us, through judiciously selected stories and interviews, that the choices of passengers and crew aboard the sinking Titanic were the result of difficult, mostly impromptu balances of facts, and that even apt foresight isn't always enough to avoid a moral (or literal) disaster.

The Titanic Story is also easy to read, and it has a friendly, discursive tone that's a lot like listening to an unassuming person talk about a matter in which he is well-informed and thoughtful. It brings a literary interpretation to bear upon a serious historical event without getting maudlin or indulgent (he uses the stage metaphor in moderation); it is funny when it's appropriate to be funny; and what's more, it is convincing.

Professor Cox's book is an important, unique addition to the corpus of Titanic literature.

A crisp and engaging read, Cox offers up fresh perspectives on this oft-told maritime tale. A veritable life preserver amid the flotsam of current 'Titanic' literature, I heartily recommend this book.

The correct title is "The Titanic Story: Hard Choices, Dangerous Decisions".

By the way, it's a terrific book!

When I began reading, I thought the subtitle should read "Fair Play for Ismay" or "Don't Bash Poor Bruce." His only fault seems to be that he left his valet and secretary behind on the ship. Then I thought the purpose of the book was to ridicule government inquiries and regulations, since the author make much of belittling the "lifeboats for all" legislation; saying that had Titanic enough for all, it would not have helped since they could not launch the 20 they had. (If there was less belief in Titanic's unsinkability, I'm sure the 4 collapsible lifeboats would have been stored in less awkward places and so would've been launched before the ship sank. The belief was that Titanic was a "Floating Lifeboat") Neither Lusitania or the Eastland were able to use their lifeboats because they sank so fast and Eastland capsized because it was overloaded with people on one side of it's deck. The ship owners suddenly cried "boats for all" because they did not want an outsider (i.e. the government) meddling with their monopolies and cozy old boys clubs; just like the movie moguls "regulated" themselves 10 years later. The wireless law was necessary because of the proliferation of mixed up messages that cause some newspapers to say "All safe. Titanic towed to Halifax."; but Cox does not mention that. As to the survivor accounts, they appear to be there to pad the book. There was no new information and no insight as to why they decided to go or stay. It's ok reading because someone had to point out that Mr. Ismay was scapegoated. He should not have been given the wireless message (much less keep it in his pocket) if he was considered an ordinary passenger; but he was brave to have tried to help and to go in nearly the last boat, since he knew from Thomas Andrews just after the collision that the ship would sink. And he did feel some guilt that so many who put their faith in his company's ship had perished.

If you had a clear-cut opinion about the Titanic tragedy, Stephen Cox will probably change that. This book not only disputes and destroys certain popular myths, but raises many questions that do not have definitive good answers. Though I would have liked more of the author's opinion, this book is a compelling discussion of the Titanic story.

Stephen Cox's THE TITANIC STORY is carefully researched, offering new insight into a fascinating story. More importantly, it is a delight to read: Cox is a brilliant writer.

It was hard for me to follow the direction in which the author was trying to lead the reader. From a literature professor, especially, I expected better structure and organisation: a set of assertions in the introduction that would lay out the overall theme of the book, a body of information to support those assertions, and a concise summary to cohere the information together into the theme described in the introduction. Instead, the author meandered from topic to topic, ending in an unexpected attack on Mr. Ismay and Senator Smith. I did not feel that the information presented was fully balanced, but instead supported only one side of the author's argument. I found a similar bias in the appendix, where the author gives his own interpretation of others' books on the subject. Not only did I find myself disagreeing with more than half of the author's opinions, I saw no reason for dissecting others' works in this book. There are some thought-provoking arguments sprinkled throughout the book and a reader knowledgeable with most of the aspects of the tragedy can evaluate them in a proper context.