The Titanic: Disaster of the Century, by Wyn Craig Wade

In my semi-unhealthy binge into maritime disaster books, I was saving the Titanic for last. After all the books I've read covering shipwrecks I have come across the most horrific, stomach churning, "well I'm never setting foot in a boat of any kind ever again" scenes. Stranded sailors being eaten by sharks, cannibalism, mutiny, near rescue only to be overlooked, I've read pretty much everything by now. In comparison the Titanic, to me, almost seemed...dinky? In the scope of maritime disasters. Why is this disaster so romanticized? Why does the image of stoic first class men in their finery going down with the ship span across the WORLD?

This book didn't just recount the schematics of the ship, the off-the-book decision of the man behind the wheel at the sighting of the iceberg, what song the band allegedly played up until their last moments. It certainly covered those things, but went so much deeper. Senator William Alden Smith was a huge part of this book, far beyond his heading the committee of the investigation into the sinking of the Titanic in the US. He, and by extension the Titanic itself, represented and ripped open to expose the festering wound that is the amount of absolute absurd level of hubris humanity had (and still has) at the turn of the century.

Smith showed the world that this was indeed the symbolic death of Victorian romanticism. To even name a ship "Titanic," after the Titans of Greek mythology, that something man-made could "conquer the ocean" is 1912's equivalent of things like the BP oil spill, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, and numerous other examples of humanity showing such unabashed pride that would have quite literally gotten you arrested in ancient Greece. Pride is not something to be celebrated. It is dangerous, it elevates people above the reality of the world and causes errors that are 100% human based, entirely preventable, and cost human lives and destroys the planet.

The Titanic also had consequences that accounts and dramatizations like James Cameron's movie ignore. The backlash against the suffragette movement because of the ridiculous maritime protocol of "women and children first," bumping up anglo-saxon men up to the status of "heroes" deserving a monument. The class separation on board that was so terribly ingrained into steerage passengers that it cost them their lives. Steerage passengers were so utterly convinced that they were less-than that most didn't even attempt to get on deck. They held their children, played the piano, and prayed. What kind of world is this? That people have been told for so long that they are less-than that they truly believe they are not worth saving? That their children are not worth saving? That is the real story of the Titanic. Think about that the next time you watch Jack and Rose.

"It can't happen here."-2001

"A practically unsinkable ship."-1912