A captivating read for Titanic and maritime enthusiasts.
An exploration of the aftermath of the Titanic’s fatal voyage.
Since the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, the ship has been the subject of legends and myths, edging on an obsession for some. Rather than focusing on what caused the ship to sink, science writer Stone, author of The Food Explorer, chronicles what has happened since the night the ship struck an iceberg. “In cultural lore, the Titanic is the wreck around which all others orbit,” writes the author. “The same way a pop musician can’t escape the influence of the Beatles or Michael Jackson, shipwreckers can’t bypass the brightest star.” Stone attributes much of the ship’s outsized, iconic status to “good storytelling.” Drawing on eyewitness accounts and expert reports, the author tracks the shipwreck’s history, including how it broke apart, the discovery of its resting place in September 1985, and subsequent plans and attempts to salvage the ship. “Raising it, however, would create a new set of problems,” writes Stone, including accelerating the ship’s decay. The author also discusses how surviving the tragedy changed many lives, particularly the survivor’s shame faced by those who were able to find a lifeboat and row away from the sinking ship, leaving hundreds behind. One woman “lived the rest of her life trying to salvage her and her husband’s reputations as heartless cowards.” Additionally, Stone discusses versions of the Titanic’s story that have appeared in books and film, including, of course, James Cameron’s 1997 mega-blockbuster. Though the author focuses on the Titanic, he writes about other maritime tragedies and maritime-related science, including hypothermia, what to do if you find yourself on a sinking ship, how sound travels underwater, disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, and the effects of water pressure on the lungs. From the beginning of the narrative, Stone effectively draws readers in with his own great storytelling skills.
A captivating read for Titanic and maritime enthusiasts.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-32937-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
HISTORY | NATURE | MODERN | EXPEDITIONS | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Gessen is a Suetonius for our time, documenting the death of the old America while holding out slim hope for its restoration.
The National Book Award winner delivers a handbook for an age in which egomania is morphing into autocracy at warp speed.
New Yorker contributor Gessen, an immigrant from what was then the Soviet Union, understands totalitarian systems, especially the ways in which, under totalitarian rule, language is degraded into meaninglessness. Today, writes the author, we are “using the language of political disagreement, judicial procedure, or partisan discussion to describe something that was crushing the system that such terminology was invented to describe.” Against that, Gessen suggests, we now have an administration for which words hold no reality, advancing the idea that “alternative facts” are fine but professing dismay when one calls them lies. The step-by-step degradation of democratic institutions that follows is a modern-day rejoinder to the fact that more than half a dozen years separated the Reichstag fire from World War II. That’s a big buffer of time in which to admit all manner of corruption, and all manner of corruption is what we’ve been seeing: Gessen reminds us about Mick Mulvaney’s accepting handsome gifts from the payday-loan industry he was supposed to regulate and Ben Carson’s attempt to stock his office with a $31,000 dining-room set. Yet corruption’s not the right word, writes the author, since Trump and company are quite open and even boastful about what used to be a matter of shame and duplicity. The real tragedy, it seems, is that they have been so successful in creating what the author calls a “new, smaller American society,” one that willfully excludes the Other. Many writers have chronicled the Trump administration’s missteps and crimes, but few as concisely as Gessen, and her book belongs on the shelf alongside Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny and Amy Siskind’s The List as a record of how far we have fallen.
Gessen is a Suetonius for our time, documenting the death of the old America while holding out slim hope for its restoration.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-18893-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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