First, the good. The illustrations are wonderful and large, and the short descriptions that accompany each design point out how the design evolved from predecessors, and the marine architect's intent in making these changes. The paper and illustration quality is excellent.
The biggest downside is that this stops at hull 148, launched and delivered in 1882. H&W would go on to design naval and commercial ships for another 70 years before building wound down (and eventually restarted in support of offshore energy). For a book subtitled "the builders of the Titanic" this is dangerously close to bait and switch. (And I would guess that many of you reading this review are here because of the Titanic connection. There is nothing on this topic, or even foreshadowing it.)
The second and related, downside is that there are no naval ships discussed or shown at all, only commercial designs. (As the earliest H&W naval designs I know of are WWI era, this may be an artifact of the date the book stops, not the authors intent. Yet without access to archives I do not know what designs may have been drawn up.) H&W would build a number of naval ships, including aircraft carriers. There is no single source on these designs.
The third drawback is that all of these designs were built. Certainly H&W had some designs that were never sold, or alternate designs that were superceeded by the ships that were actually built. If they exist, they are not noted.
Perhaps this is intended to be part of a multivolume set, and certainly commercial shipbuilding changed with the Olympic class and could warrant its own volume. So too could naval shipbuilding, where H&W did monitors, cruisers, carriers, and support vessels. A final volume might encompass the 1960s to the present, including the many designs that were never built and the rebirth of the company in support of energy platforms. Of course such a project must contend with the loss of much of the archives during WWII bombing and historical atrophy. While still incomplete, we could do with more than just this one book.
But there is no indication that such a project is planned. Had this book been titled "Ships from the Archives of Harland & Wolff: Commercial Ship Designs through 1882" this would be a five star book. As it is it sits between 3 and 4 stars, with the fourth star being given because the book is a well produced product given its narrower ambitions.
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