Lusitania: Triumph, Tragedy, and the End of the Edwardian Age

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania, King (The Assassination of the Archduke) and Wilson (The Resurrection of the Romanovs) unite to detail the events leading up to the harrowing, fateful day of May 7, 1915. The authors tell the grim tale of the titular doomed passenger liner, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the early stages of World War I. The ship sank within 18 minutes; sending nearly 1,200 people of all ages, nationalities, and social classes to terrible deaths in the Irish Sea and setting off a political firestorm that would eventually culminate in the United States joining the war. Undoubtedly, with Walter Lord's A Night To Remember serving as inspiration, King and Wilson spend much of this work in a breathless rush from one "saloon class" passenger to another. (Second- and third-class passengers are largely omitted owing to lack of source material.) The result is a somewhat shallow read; the authors might have been better off letting readers become more intimately acquainted with slightly fewer passengers.