With new interest in the Titanic due to the sensational film, Greenhill are distributing internationally the new book from Stackpole. "Unsinkable", Stackpole say, stands apart from every other work about the Titanic disaster. The author, Daniel Allen Butler, has taken a unique perspective in his examination of the disaster and the men and women aboard the liner, presenting and probing their actions by the light of the standards and values of 1912 rather than holding them up for judgment by the values of the late-twentieth century. It is a special perspective that allows the reader to understand many otherwise incomprehensible acts that night aboard the stricken liner. Stackpole writes: Unsinkable examines and interrogates how and why an entire society could believe in such a thing as an 'unsinkable' ship and how the confines of class structure could define life-and-death relationships between passengers and crew. How could a ship that complied with every safety regulation then in force still carry fewer than half the necessary lifeboats? Why did the majority of the Third Class passengers patiently wait - in vain - to be directed to safety? Why did three-quarters of the crew stay behind, and so were lost? All these questions and more are part of the Titanic story and are told, not in search of scapegoats, but with sympathy and compassion for the men and women aboard the ship, who were confronted with a situation beyond their comprehension. So the story unfolds, from its beginnings in 1907 when two men conceived of the Titanic and her sisters over Havana cigars and Napoleon brandy, through the construction of the magnificent new ship, to her sailing day and her maiden voyage, culminating with the ten-second encounter that would seal her fate. But the story of the Titanic does not end with the stern of the liner rearing high into the sky as she begins her final plunge or with the rescue of the survivors in the early dawn. The story continues through two investigations: one American, one British. Bodies are recovered from the North Atlantic while a seafaring town in England mourns her dead. Almost seventy-five years later the wreck of the Titanic is discovered, and before long, professional salvors begin recovering artifacts from the wreck amid cries of protest from families of victims and survivors. All of this is recounted in Unsinkable, one of the most comprehensive accounts of the Titanic ever written. By adopting the perspective of asking the men and women of 1912 to answer to the standards by which they lived, this unique and compelling narrative, rather than providing a simple revisionist view, allows readers to come to their own conclusions about the Titanic and the people intertwined with her fate." This new book has been reviewed by Walter Lord, author of the famous A Night to Remember, who says that it is 'a masterful treatment of the Titanic disaster'. Back to Greenhill Military Book News No. 82 Table of Contents Back to Greenhill Military Book News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Greenhill Books This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com