The "Titanic"

On its launch at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, the Titanic awed the world. It was a magnificent engineering achievement in a golden age of shipbuilding. Its lavish extravagance and sheer record- breaking size had the White Star Line’s rivals dashing back to their drawing boards. The ‘Titanic attracted the rich and famous and with them the entire world’s attention. But its sinking and the loss of over 1,500 lives have made its name synonymous with tragedy, the ship itself now representing poor judgement, bad planning, and gross negligence. Fascination with the Titanic, however, has never waned. Throughout their lives survivors were treated as celebrities, films were made and stories written. The phenomenal success of James Cameron’s epic film Titanic (1997), which broke world box office records, and the release of Cameron’s Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) — an edge-of-your-seat 3-D journey through the wreckage of the Titanic — have renewed world interest in this unforgettable tragedy. Illustrated throughout with 100 photographs, the Titanic tells the fascinating story of this ship, from inception to the events of the night of April 14, 1912 and on to the present day.