Titanic on Trial

On 15 April 2012, it will be 100 years since the Titanicsank. Since that fateful night, stories about the sinking have becomelegendary - how the band played tothe end, how lifeboats were lowered half-empty - but amongst the films,novels and academic arguments, only those who were there canseparate truth from fiction.After the sinking, inquiries into the loss of 1,517 lives (out of2,223 aboard) were held in both the UK and US. The proceedings produced1,000 pages of transcripts. Some of the testimonies were inevitably less than impartial, but as a whole thetranscripts represent the most thorough and complete account of thesinking, told in the voices of those who were there.For the first time these transcripts have been specially edited and arranged chronologically, so that they tell the story ofthe Titanic's sinking as a narrative, rather than a list ofquestions and answers in a courtroom. Thewitnesses are transformed into characters in a much biggerstory, and the events are described from different perspectives of people inevery part of the ship, from a stoker in the boiler room escaping hissection before the watertight doors sealed behind him, to first classpassengers trying to buy their way onto lifeboats.Capturing the disbelief, the chaos and the terror of the disaster, thisunique book brings to life the tragedy through the voices of those whosurvived it.