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When RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-20 sub in May 1915, the world changed forever. With 128 Americans among the casualties, the United States was shaken in its commitment to neutrality and moved closer to entering World War I. Author Diana Preston brings the reader aboard the ill-fated ocean liner for a ride through history that won't be soon forgotten.
Booklist
A captivating and conscientious narrative of the disaster and its consequences.
Publishers Weekly
Following her previous title for Walker, The Boxer Rebellion, Preston, an Oxford-trained historian, writer and broadcaster, provides more thrills and chills with this tale of the May 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, one of the jewels of Cunard's fleet of ocean liners, during a crossing from New York to Liverpool. Hit by a German submarine's torpedo, it sank in 18 minutes, with 1,200 casualties. The tragedy was a major motivation for America's entering WWI against Germany, as 124 U.S. citizens were among the dead. Preston offers myriad details to recreate the look and feel of the Lusitania's last voyage. Beyond that, she judiciously marshals German accounts at the time of the sinking and since to "justify" the attack, such as the charge that the Lusitania was carrying Canadian soldiers or contraband weapons, but she finds no evidence that soldiers were present, although a cache of weapons was carried. With a realistic view of the tangle of world politics in the WWI era, she concludes: "... no government, British, German, or American, was entirely free of blame for the situation leading up to the attack. Nor, in its wake, was any government hesitant to twist the facts, or use the disaster, to its own political ends." (May) Forecast: With human details to back up the political analysis, this fluently written item would seem a natural for history buffs. Analogies between the WTC attacks and the ill-fated ship may be drawn by some reviewers. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
In a lively narrative, Preston (A First-Rate Tragedy) examines the torpedoing of the British liner Lusitania by the German U-20 in 1915. Preston re-creates the physical conditions of ship life aboard both the Lusitania and the U-boat as well as the political and military context that led to the Lusitania's destruction, with the loss of over 1200 people. Perhaps Preston's greatest contribution to the historical record is helping to debunk some of the conspiracy theories associated with the event. For example, the British were quick to realize the propaganda potential in the tragedy and tried to suppress any significant investigation into the event for fear that they might be blamed, thus detracting from the moral outrage felt in the neutral United States. As such the Royal Navy's shortcomings, especially the confusion caused by the fog of war, were never revealed, helping fuel the notion that the Lusitania was sacrificed by the British and especially Winston Churchill to induce America into joining the Allied side. Meanwhile, Preston's reconstruction of the path of the U-20 is revealing, especially in detailing the submarine captain's willingness to attack civilian targets without clear orders. This book is effectively written, researched, and argued. Recommended for all libraries. Frederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Booknews
For her third historical account, Preston tells the story of the British luxury liner sunk by a German U-boat in the Irish Sea in May 1915. She looks at the design and building of the ship, the dangers of transatlantic passage during World War I, the voyage and sinking, and the political aftermath. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
A vivid reconstruction of the famed ocean liner's demise and its history-altering consequences. The Cunard liner Lusitania was a veritable floating city, capable of carrying thousands of passengers who, on a typical crossing from Liverpool to New York, consumed "40,000 eggs, 4,000 pounds of fresh fish, two tons of bacon and ham, 4,000 pounds of coffee, 1,000 pineapples, 500 pounds of grapes, 1,000 lemons, 25,000 pounds of meat, nearly 3,000 gallons of milk, over 500 gallons of cream, and 30,000 loaves of bread." Telling details such as these are the stuff in which popular historian Preston (The Boxer Rebellion) trades. She is equally devoted to small touches when it comes to writing about major players in the Lusitania's unfortunate end; her brief portrait of the petulant but gentlemanly Kaiser Wilhelm, for instance, is well worth the price of admission and does much to illuminate German conduct in WWI. Though standard histories often use the sinking of the Lusitania as a quick way to explain how the US came to shed its neutrality and enter the war on the side of the Allies, it was no sneak attack; as Preston writes, the German embassy in New York issued written warning to all passengers that the vessel was subject to sinking, inasmuch as the Royal Navy had pressed it into reserve service as a troop and materiel-transport vessel. On its ill-fated final voyage, the Lusitania was in fact carrying armaments along with other contraband, though Preston reckons that it would have been more civilized for the Germans to board and evacuate the ship before sinking it. Instead, nearly 1,200 civilians died as a result of the German attack. Its aftermath ultimately changed the outcome ofthe war for reasons that Preston does a characteristically fine job of explaining. Top-drawer military history, engagingly told.
