RMS "Titanic" sank in 1912, a US presidential election year; and in
the very first days of the great House of Commons debate on Home
Rule for Ireland. The Marconi companies were heroes to the press
and the public, who credited them with saving the lives that were
saved; JP Morgan, who owned the shipping trust that controlled
Titanic's White Star Line, was a major political target for the
trust-busters. And members of the British Cabinet, including the
Attorney-General who was to direct (and nobble) the Crown's case in
the Titanic enquiry, were up to their necks in inside trading in
Marconi shares. This is the story of how, in Titanic's loss, 1500
souls were sacrificed to the 'settled science' and 'scientific
consensus' of marine engineering. It is also the story of how the
US and British loss enquiries were shaped by party politics,
corrupted by corrupt politicians and the Marconi Scandal, tainted
by the politics of Irish Home Rule, and - finally - salvaged by
Oliver Wendell Holmes and the US Supreme Court, and by Lord
Mersey's judgement in the Board of Trade Enquiry and the subsequent
International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. Titanic
sank a century ago; but she sails on, the ghost ship of modern law
and politics, shaping our world in ways we don't notice. This is
that story, told by the historians of Churchill's vindication in
May 1940 and of how Congress, four months before Pearl Harbor, kept
America's armed services ready for war, by a margin of one vote.
Advance praise for "When That Great Ship Went Down: " 'What sank
the Titanic? Its builders' belief that, when it came to building
ships, "the Science Was Settled." And, as this cool reassessment of
the US and British Titanic enquiries shows, politicians and
regulators in 1912 were just as bad as the current lot: they had a
progressive political narrative to push, and their own secrets to
hide. Sounds familiar.' - James Delingpole, "Daily Telegraph"
columnist, 2010 winner of the Bastiat Prize for Online Journalism,
and author of, most recently, "Watermelons: The Green Movement's
True Colours" 'In this sharply and eruditely-drawn account of the
Titanic Inquiries on either side of the Atlantic, the authors warn:
"What lessons this may hold for Mr Cameron and Mr Salmond is beyond
the scope of this work." Fortunately, their vivid reconstruction
and analysis enable us to draw plenty of damning parallels. This is
a parliamentary procedural as well as the re-creation of a vanished
pre-War world; its political and intellectual processes as well as
a sociology ranging from Trollope to Joyce. This is far more than
another clever "Titanic" book.' - Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, Paris
Contributing Columnist, "The Sunday Telegraph"
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