Unsinkable: The Full Story Of The RMS Titanic

by Daniel Allen Butler

This passionate yet balanced narrative explores every facet of the Titanic 's history, including her spectacular conception in an Irish shipyard and the ambitious modern-day attempts to salvage her. The familiar story of the RMS Titanic —from her encounter with an iceberg to her demise some three hours later, taking with her more than fifteen hundred people—still looms large in the popular imagination, and in Daniel Butler's as well. He studied the Titanic 's history for thirty years, intensively compiling facts about the disaster and the players involved (from Captain Smith and his crew to the ill-fated third-class passengers). He even made the startling discovery of a nearby ship that ignored the Titanic 's distress call because the shipmates were afraid to awaken their captain. Drawn from primary sources and period accounts, this new narrative puts the disaster into historical context and serves as an essential resource for scholars of Titanic lore.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Historical, American History, Tragedy, World History, Survival

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 1998

About the author

Daniel Allen Butler is a maritime and military historian, the author (through September 2011) of nine books. Some of his previous works include Unsinkable: the Full Story of RMS Titanic (1998); Distant Victory: The Battle of Jutland and the Allied Triumph in the First World War (2006); The Age of Cunard (2003); The Other Side of the Night: The Carpathia, theCalifornian, and the Night the Titanic was Lost (2009); The Burden of Guilt: How Germany Shattered the Last Days of Peace, Summer 1914 (2010); and Shadow of the Sultan’s Realm: the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (2011).



Educated at Hope College, Grand Valley State University, and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Butler served in the United States Army before becoming a full-time author. He is an internationally recognized authority on maritime subjects and a popular guest speaker, having given presentations at the National Archives in Washington, DC, the Mariners’ Museum, and in the United Kingdom. He has also been frequently included in the on-board enrichment series of Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2 andQueen Mary 2, as well as the ships of the Royal Caribbean and Norwegian cruise lines.



Butler is currently at work on three new projects: The Field Marshal, a biography of Erwin Rommel; The Last Field of Glory: Waterloo, 1815, a history of the Hundred Days; and But for Freedom Alone, the story of the Declaration of Arbroath.



A self-proclaimed “semi-professional beach bum,” Butler divides what little time he spends away from his writing between wandering long stretches of warm, sandy beaches, his love of woodworking, his passion for British sports cars, and his fascination with building model ships. After living and working in Los Angeles, California, for several years, Butler has recently relocated—permanently, he hopes!—to Atlantic Beach, Florida, where the beaches are better.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of words have been expended on the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. So it takes a certain amount of brashness to subtitle your book, “the Full Story,” implying as it does the notion that all the facts have been hidden till now.

After finishing Daniel Allen Butler’s Unsinkable, though, I realized that his book serves an important function. Yes, there are hundreds of Titanic books. Many of the most recent publications (within the past decade) seem to come in two types: either slapped together to capitalize on James Cameron’s film, thus appealing to the masses; or devoted to very detailed aspects of the disaster, thus appealing to true Titanic enthusiasts.

The best standard work, Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember, was published in 1955. Other narratives, including books by Michael Davie and Wyn Craig Wade, also share more-distant publication dates. In Titanic-lore, date of publication looms large; books published before Bob Ballard’s 1985 discovery of the wreck are at a distinct disadvantage.

Butler’s Unsinkable was written with the stated intent to both update the story (taking into account things we’ve learned from going to the bottom of the ocean) and to provide a narrative shorn of “latter-day moralizing, social leveling, mythmaking, or finger pointing.” In other words, Butler intended a post-revisionist take on the Titanic legend. No Titanic as a cross-section of the Victorian-era metaphors here!

Of course, anybody who says he isn’t revisionist is, in fact, a revisionist. Butler’s no different. He’s just revising away from the mean. By the end of the book, you can see him (as Titanic enthusiasts are known to do…to their therapists) grinding various axes, belaboring certain points, and generally seeing in Titanic what he wants to see (it is, when all is said and done, one of history’s great Rorschach tests).

Still, it’s pretty good. If it’s not a classic, it is definitely one of the better overall all Titanic books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a few.

To be sure, it is thorough. It begins with a brief history of the White Star Line, and concludes with that company’s decision to build three great ships. This introductory section, usually dealt with perfunctorily if at all, nicely sets up the context in which Titanic was created. Contrary to certain myths, the Titanic was not attempting to break any speed records in crossing the Atlantic. Indeed, the Blue Riband was safely in the hands of the Cunard Line’s smaller, faster ships. The White Star Line intentionally sacrificed speed for size and luxury (of course, the luxury in the White Star ship’s was a loss-leader; the real profit margins came from steerage).

The telling of the sinking is fairly conventional and conservative. Butler does not attempt to alter the consensus opinion with regards to how the Titanic struck the iceberg, what orders First Officer Murdoch gave on the bridge (to avoid the iceberg), and whether or not the ship was structurally sound (Butler blithely dismisses the notion that the White Star Line used sub-standard steel in Titanic’s construction).

Following the sinking, there is an entire chapter devoted to the Leland Line cargo ship Californian, which was stopped some 10-20 miles from Titanic on the night of the disaster, and failed to come to her aid. There are also sections detailing the American and British Inquiries into the sinking, as well as a brief chapter surveying the various expeditions to the shipwreck, grave-robbing and otherwise.

Butler’s writing style is eminently readable. His prose isn’t as breathless or propulsive as Walter Lord’s, but then again, he isn’t trying to outdo the master. To the contrary, when describing Titanic’s final moments, Butler simply quotes an excerpt from A Night to Remember, acknowledging an inability to surpass Lord’s inimitable portrait.

Even though I’ve read a great deal on the Titanic, I found a lot of new factoids, some of them quite interesting. For instance, Butler notes that the gates erected between first and third class, which seemed to trap the steerage passengers in a British-devised, class-structured cage, were actually mandated by U.S. immigration law, in order to stop the spread of communicable diseases (because you never knew where those dirty Italians had been!). I was also gruesomely fascinated by Butler’s contention that water-borne survivors were killed by debris popping to the surface, after the ship had gone under.

My favorite parts of Unsinkable were in Butler’s handling of the Californian and the U.S. Inquiry.

As to the Californian, and her dour captain, Stanley Lord, Butler is unforgiving. He has no time for Lord’s defenders (contrarians, in every sense of the word, fighting for a man long dead, who wouldn’t have wanted their help anyway) who try to use the earth’s curvature and mysterious Japanese whaling ships as excuses for Lord’s failure to act on the night of April 14-15. Butler cuts through all the crap and focuses, rightly, on the undisputed, eyewitness testimony of the Californian’s crew that they saw what appeared to be a passenger liner firing off rockets. Just coincidentally, the Titanic was nearby, firing off rockets. Butler justly ridicules the notion that the men on the Californian saw anything other than Titanic sinking by the head. Whether or not they could have gotten through an ice field in time, is irrelevant. The fact is, Lord didn't even try. (The captain of the eventual rescue ship, Arthur Rostron of the Carpathia, greatly benefited from Lord’s indifference. He became one of the lasting heroes of the tragedy, simply by dint of competence and normal human compassion).

With regards to the U.S. Inquiry, Butler is unfailingly positive. Chaired by Senator William Alden Smith, of Michigan, the U.S. Inquiry has long been mocked, especially by the haughty British across the Atlantic (their motto: We may lose our empire, our colonies, and our ships, but we shall never lose our sarcastic and condescending demeanor). To be sure, Smith asked a lot of questions that sound ridiculous, naïve, or ignorant. Some of these queries include: “what is ice made of?” (ice); “can you survive in a watertight compartment?” (uh, no); and “did the ship sink by the bow or the head?” (are you serious?).

However, as Butler points out, these kinds of questions, which seem hopelessly dumb, also tended to get to the truth of the matter. The most important witnesses were the ship’s officers; these officers (especially the dashing, pathologically dishonest Second Officer Charles Lightoller) tended to hide behind a smokescreen of nautical terms and technical jargon. Smith’s plain-English questioning eroded this verbal barrier.

More importantly, by holding the Inquiry immediately (which was also criticized by the British press), Smith got the best and most honest recollections from his witnesses. We all know that memory is malleable; it changes over time. The more a person thinks back on an event, and the more extraneous information is consumed, the more a memory is changed. Senator William Alden Smith actually did more than any single person to create the Titanic narrative, and Butler gives him due praise.

I did have a few criticisms. My chief complaint is in Unsinkable’s sourcing. There are endnotes, thankfully, and even a few annotated notes, which is my favorite kind of endnote. But there aren’t enough. Not for the number of facts that Butler crams onto each page. There were certain things he said that really caught my attention; however, those things often had no source. Worse yet, Butler has a nasty habit of citing to secondary sources. This is a huge no-no in any kind of book that wants to be taken even halfway seriously. You cannot propound a fact about what happened on the Titanic and then attempt to back that fact up by directing me to another general history, just like the one I’m reading. If you’re going to do that, you might as well cite to Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, or the Great Pumpkin.

My other criticism goes back to something I mentioned earlier: the alleged lack of revisionism. Don’t be fooled by the introduction; Butler is certainly revising the Titanic story. This is overt in his chapters on Captain Lord and Senator Smith, and more subtle in other places. For instance, Butler (the Rush Limbaugh of Titanic studies), vehemently denies the existence of any class warfare on the Titanic. Despite grossly disproportionate death tolls (60% of first class survived, as opposed to 24% of third class), he sticks to his belief that all was fair in love and doomed ocean liners. There is a strain of logic to Butler’s thinking. To be sure, steerage passengers had a farther way to travel to the Boat Deck, and once they got there (if they got there), they were not turned away on the basis of their ticket. The problem, though, is Butler’s refusal to acknowledge the crew’s utter failure in bringing steerage passengers up from below. To his mind, the most the crew can be culpable of is “benign” neglect. I’m not buying the old “we forgot about the 700 people downstairs” defense, especially not after Butler offhandedly notes that Titanic’s crew locked the Italian and French wait staff of the a la carte restaurant in their rooms! (Unfortunately, there is no citation for this quaint old chestnut of Edwardian suspicion towards the peoples of the Continent).

On the whole, Butler is quite forgiving of Titanic’s crew, to the point where one can almost imagine him in a room thinking about them, his stiff upper lip barely quivering. Certainly, on an individual level, the crew acted (at times) with incredible bravery (only 23% of the crew survived). This includes the engineers, who literally sacrificed their lives to keep the lights on until the very last moment. On the other hand, you had craven crewmembers, such as the unlucky helmsman Robert Hitchens, who spent his time in the lifeboat arguing with Molly Brown.

The numbers tell the story of an inefficient and botched rescue. With a lifeboat capacity of 1,178, Titanic’s crew managed to save 705 (or 710, according to some reports). With 2 hours and forty minutes in which to effect an evacuation, on a sea as flat as a mill pond, with a ship going down on an even keel, Titanic’s crew only managed to fill the 20 lifeboats to 59% capacity. That’s not exactly the stuff of a Kipling poem.

Of course, a fish rots from the head down. And this brings us to Captain Edward John Smith, the mysterious, disappearing commodore, who quietly oversaw a complete command breakdown aboard his stricken vessel. After Titanic’s collision, Smith went comatose. He lost the initiative. There was no attempt to ensure that the crew were at their stations; there was no attempt to systematically warn passengers of the dangers; there was no oversight over the loading and lowering of the boats; there was confusion over the lowering instructions (Second Officer Lightoller refused all men; First Officer Murdoch let men aboard, once the women had loaded); and he apparently allowed a bunch of French and Italian waiters to drown in their rooms, because of their Frenchness and their Italianness.

Part of the reason I got this book was due to Butler’s supposed critique of Captain Edward John Smith. Well, it turns out not to be much of a critique. In the final paragraph of a hastily written appendix, Butler asked a clinical psychologist to attempt to diagnose Captain Smith’s apparent breakdown. She comes up with a term called “temporary disfunctionality,” a state of mental shock. Despite Smith’s documented command failures, and despite that psychological diagnosis, Butler refuses to cast blame, insisting: “It is highly doubtful any of us could have done any better.”

You’re right! I couldn’t have done any better. Because I’m a 21st century lawyer, not an early 20th century ship’s captain. I’m pretty sure we’re held to different standards. Butler’s point isn’t really a point at all. If I were Captain Smith, I would’ve filled a lifeboat with food, brandy, and jewels; handpicked a crew of the best rowers; and made my way to Newfoundland. That’s why no one has put me in charge of an ocean liner. Hell, if I were captain, Titanic never would have sunk in the Atlantic; instead, it would have ran over every navigation buoy, struck five moored ships, collided with a whale, and I would have been arrested.

Anyway, when Butler sticks to his non-revisionist pledge, things are fine. When he starts to inject his non-opinion opinions, I got annoyed. What it comes down to is this: if you were to read only one Titanic in your life, it should still be A Night to Remember. But if you read two, you wouldn’t be hurting yourself to choose Unsinkable.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was eight years old when Titanic barreled its way into theaters, so I wasn't at the epicenter of the hysteria over the movie (my best friend in elementary school saw the movie in theaters and immediately became obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio - meanwhile, I was still spending recess pretending to be a horse, because I was super cool). I don't think I actually saw the movie in its entirety until I was a teenager, so I was never as fascinated by the story as everyone else was, but I still understood the appeal. Even if you remove the hysterical star-crossed lovers plotline (You jump I jump, Jack!), the story of the sinking of the Titanic is almost too classically Hollywood to be believable. A ship that was billed as "unsinkable", one of the most luxurious ocean liners of its time, strikes an iceberg and sinks, resulting in the highest casualties of its time (prior to the sinking of the Titanic, the grand total of deaths on an ocean liner in the past forty years was six people). Poor people trapped below as the ship sinks, families saying tearful goodbyes at the lifeboats, and musicians playing even as the ship goes under? You can't make this shit up.

I've always wanted to read a good nonfiction account of the sinking, and when I saw this at the library, I decided to give it a try. Having never read any other accounts of the sinking of the Titanic, I obviously can't compare Butler's book to anything or evaluate its accuracy. That being said, it's definitely thorough and well-researched. Butler gives us some background into the building of the Titanic and some general stats about the ship, but he wastes no time getting to the good stuff - the night of the sinking occurs on page 63, and Butler goes into almost exhausting detail covering almost every moment of the ship's final two hours. Working off primary sources and secondary accounts, Butler discusses the crew's response as well as the experiences of multiple passengers, from first class to steerage. It's true that there were gates keeping the third class passengers from the rest of the ship, Butler says, but this was an immigration regulation (can't have those dirty Europeans down in steerage getting their lice on the rich people) and most of those gates were unlocked when the ship began to sink. The real problem was that the people in third class had no idea how to get around the ship, which was specifically designed to keep them belowdecks, and they had to be led to the upper decks by crewmen:

"At half past midnight the word came down to Third Class to send the women and children up to the Boat Deck. Steward Hart, who had realized early on that the Third Class passengers had almost no chance of negotiating the passageways and corridors that were usually inaccessible to steerage if left to themselves, began to organize his charges into little groups. Around 12:50 he set off for the Boat Deck, leading a score of women, some with children in tow. ...It wasn't an easy trip: the design of the ship, because of those outdated American immigration laws that required Third Class physically separated from the other classes of passengers, allowed no direct route from the Third Class berthing areas to the Boat Deck, and access to what routes there were was very limited. That was why Hart had to lead his group up the stairs to the Third Class Lounge on C Deck, across the after well deck, past the Second Class Library, into First Class, along a stretch of corridor that led past the surgeon's office and the private dining saloon for the First Class' servants, and finally out to the Grand Staircase, which carried them up to the Boat Deck."

The only good thing to come out of the Titanic sinking was that it illustrated how dangerously out of date the safety regulations on ships were. After he finishes covering the sinking and the rescue of the passengers, Butler spends several chapters discussing the numerous investigations and inquests that followed the sinking. The sinking was the direct cause of massive reforms on ocean liners, improving everything from the radio technicians shifts to the number of required lifeboats. The Titanic was a horrifying tragedy, Butler argues, but it was a tragedy that could have been avoided numerous different ways, and because of the sinking, ocean travel became safer for future passengers.

This is important to discuss, but then Butler takes his "effects of the Titanic sinking" several steps further, arguing that the sinking was responsible for the breaking down of social barriers and class systems (I kinda think that World War I was the big reason for that, but whatever Butler, it's your book), and even argues that the sinking of the Titanic set the suffrage movement back several years.

No, for real:

"...the sad truth for the women's suffrage movement was that, as Mrs. John Martin of the League for the Civic Education of Women put it, 'We are willing to let men die for us, but we aren't willing to let them vote for us.' She was merely underscoring the basic hypocrisy of the suffrage movement of the early 20th century, a hypocrisy that the Titanic exposed and that the suffragettes had not considered: equality of rights also entailed equality of risk. The suffragettes lost much of their credibility as a result, as too many of their number, unlike the women of sixty years later, were eager to secure rights without accepting responsibility."

This is me right now.

Butler also loses me when he tries to rationalize why the majority of the people who made it to the lifeboats were the First Class passengers, while the Third Class and the crew had the most casualties. Butler spends a lot of time discussing the social constraints on the ship, and wants us to believe that the reason most of the third class passengers didn't survive was because they were waiting for someone in charge to tell them where to go, but no one ever did. Butler argues that at the time, lower-class people were so conditioned to do as they were told that none of the steerage passengers would even consider taking drastic steps to save themselves, and instead waited patiently to be led out of the lower levels of the ship and directed to a lifeboat. It never would have crossed their minds, Butler insists, to upset the social order and act above their station.

Bull. Fucking. Shit. I don't care what time period you're in - if you're on a sinking ship, all bets are off. Personally, I choose to believe that at least one Third Class woman punched out a lady in an evening gown to beat her to a lifeboat. I can't prove that this happened, but Butler can't prove that it didn't, either, so NYEH.

Butler even discusses film versions of the sinking, but does not mention James Cameron's juggernaut - Butler's book was published in 1998, although Titanic came out in 1997. Maybe Butler never got a chance to see it, since the theater was always sold out thanks to teenage girls going to the movie for the tenth time? Or maybe his book had already gone to print by then and there was no time to stick in a paragraph about the movie. Either way, I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't get to find out what Butler thought of the movie, since it came out too close to his book's publication. Talk about two ships passing in the night, right? (SEE WHAT I DID THERE)

Overall, this is a really good, really thorough examination of the sinking of the Titanic and it's immediate and long-lasting results. The research seems sound, and Butler is a good historian most of the time. A good source for anyone wanting to know how accurate James Cameron's version of the sinking really was. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with a bottle of wine and 1997-era Leo. It's been a long time.

OH! I almost forgot to quote my favorite line in the entire book. Presented without context:

"[Astor] had even written a science fiction novel, A Journey Into Other World, whose hero, Colonel Bearwarden, was contracted by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company to make the Earth's axis perfectly vertical, creating perpetual springtime."

That's adorable, and I want to read that book.

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my humble opinion, this book has to stand among the best ever written about the tragedy of the Titanic. I have read The Other Side of the Night: The Carpathia, the Californian and the Night the Titanic Was Lost by this author and knew that this book would be equally as well done. And indeed it is. Mr. Butler does an admirable job of presenting the facts without the prejudice that is often present in other histories of that fateful night. He follows the activities of the passengers and crew as they react, in the most part, admirably, to the imminent sinking of the "unsinkable" and the stories of sacrifice are heartbreaking. This history covers the Titanic tragedy from the ship's launching through the Senate and British Board of Trade hearings until her rediscovery by Dr. Bob Ballard in 1985. An interesting afterword describes the lives of some of the major players in their later years and how they were forever changed by their role(s) on that April night in 1912. A very satisfying and sobering book which is highly recommended.

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I truly have learned quite a bit from my perusal of Daniel Allen Butler's 1998 monograph Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic (albeit I read multiple books on the sinking of the Titanic both as a teenager and equally so recently, although I can definitely do without the section on Titanic movies in Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic), I am if truth be told somewhat conflicted regarding the possible reading pleasure value of Butler's featured text. Sure, what Daniel Allen Butler writes for Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic is very thorough, is exceedingly well researched and with me also often pretty strongly agreeing with Butler's assessments, with his analyses and commentaries concerning what happened aboard the RMS Titanic on April 14, 1912, about how and also why the deemed "unsinkable" luxury liner collided with an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage, claiming thousands of lives, and that according to Daniel Allen Butler the only actually good and positive thing to emerge from the Titanic disaster is that it illustrated how horribly and dangerously out of date safety regulations on ships were and that the numerous investigations and inquests which followed did make and have made ocean travel much safer for future passengers (and yes, yes, yes that the glossary, notes, bibliography and index Butler provides in and for Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic are all extensively detailed and as such are very much, are hugely personally appreciated).

And I also am pleased that although David Allen Butler gives in Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic some background on the building of the Titanic and presents general numerical statistics on the ship, he also and thankfully so does not dwell too much on this and that by page sixty-three of Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic we as readers have already arrived at the the night of the sinking. But well, from page sixty-three of Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic onwards, Butler then goes into an exhaustive and for me also overly textbook like depiction and analysis of basically every single moment of the Titanic's final two hours, using both primary and secondary sources to meticulously analyse and minutely discuss the crew’s response to the Titanic sinking as well as showcasing the experiences of multiple passengers, from first class to steerage (interesting enough in and of itself to be sure, but sorry, the relentless onslaught of details shown by Daniel Allen Butler does get more than a bit dragging, often becomes frustrating instances of textual information dropping, and that this does render Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic more than a trifle tedious and is therefore most definitely neither all that stylistically engaging nor is Butler's narrative ever really hugely entertaining either but feeling more like I am sitting in a university history lecture that drones on and on and on). So yes indeed, I did often have to skim through many of the examples and scenarios upon scenarios encountered in Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic because I was getting increasingly frustrated and more than somewhat bored, not to mention that Butler also tends to get quite annoyingly repetitive in and with Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic.

Now I do much appreciate how in Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic Daniel Allen Butler devotes an equal amount of time showing readers both what the more famous first class passengers of the Titanic did and how they survived the sinking or how they perished (such as for example the demise of John Jacob Astor) and is telling the stories of second and third class Titanic passengers as well (but that there often is just too much, too much). And Butler examining in Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic several myths about the treatment of the third class passengers once the ship started to founder is interesting but once again quite textually overwhelming and dense (with him pointing out in Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic that while it is true that there were gates keeping the third class passengers from the rest of the Titanic, this was in fact an immigration regulation and that most of those gates were actually immediately unlocked when the ship began to sink, with the real problem being that the steerage, that the third class passengers of the Titanic had no idea how to get around on the ship, which was specifically designed to keep them belowdecks and they had to be led to the upper decks by Titanic crewmen (which simply did not happen quickly enough, and that of course, we all know that one of the main issues with the Titanic was that there were not sufficient lifeboats).

Therefore, while the thematics and the intensely, the extremely thorough examination of the sinking of the Titanic are solidly informative and that Daniel Allen Butler's research and his back materials are sound, the more than occasional dragginness of the text and that Butler obviously loves to throw way way way too much textual detail at his readers, this definitely lessens my reading pleasure, this definitely gets a bit monotonous (and that a three star rating for Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic is all that I can provide although I do recommend what Daniel Allen Butler writes about the Titanic for its thematic rigour and for its historical accuracy).

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It has been said that Titanic is the third most recognized word in the world, following ‘God’ and ‘Coca-cola’ “. The story of the sinking has been told over and over from several different perspectives, but usually by those who have an axe to grind or who wish to cast aspersions on one ethnic group of the passengers or crew or another. Revisionists have tried to blame different sets of people, or absolve others, for example, holding the builders to a set of standards that were not in place until many years later. Butler has written a straight narrative history that illuminates the myths that have been surrounding the ship’s accident over the past decades without the “moralizing, social leveling, finger pointing, or myth making.

By the launch date of the Titanic transatlantic steaming had reached a level of safety unheard of with any other form of transportation. Only four people had died in the forty years prior to the Titanic’s sinking, so a level of overconfidence and complacency was perhaps not unreasonable.

Titanic was the first of a planned set of three ships. The first to be launched was the Olympic, and the Titanic was to be followed by the Gigantic. Many modifications were made to the Titanic after the seas trials of the Olympic. All were owned by the White Star line that had just been purchased by J. P. Morgan who was trying to create a transportation monopoly that would stretch all the way from Europe to California. By this time he owned all the steamship lines except Cunard that was desperately seeking government assistance to fight off his takeover bid. A massive fare war erupted. At one point steerage fares could be had to America for as little as £2. This contrasted with the one-way fare on the Titanic for the most luxurious suites of about $80,000 in 1997 dollars. The robber barons who enjoyed traveling in style could easily afford it.

One unusual feature on the Titanic was the configuration of the engines. The ship had two reciprocating engines and a low pressure steam turbine that efficiently used the excess low pressure steam from the other engines, but it could not be operated in reverse. This was not thought to be a defect, but it made emergency reverse difficult. The 162 furnaces that heated water in the 29 boilers required the services of over two hundred men around the clock and used about 600 tons of coal per day.

The ship sailed just before the end of the great coal strike that managed to hurt most those people it was intended to help. The effect on the Titanic was that because coal was in such short supply, two other White Star ships had their sailings canceled in order to fill Titanic’s bunkers. It was rushed aboard and not wet down properly causing a fire to begin that smoked and smoldered the entire abbreviated journey.

The ship itself met and, in some cases, exceeded all the Board of Trade safety regulations. In fact, the inspector, the hated Captain Clarke, was known to be the most persnickety of all the B. O. T. inspectors. He passed the ship. The ship had more than the number of required lifeboats even though they were far short of being able to carry all of the passengers and crew. The theory at the time was that lifeboats were merely to be used to transfer crew and passengers from a sinking ship to the rescue vessel. A complicated formula was used to calculate the number of lifeboats based on the cubic foot capacity. The disaster was to result in rewriting the regulations regarding lifeboat capacity.

[Dara · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading A Night to Remember I was left with a longing to know more about the Titanic. Walter Lord's book is focused more on the human element the night she went down. I wanted to know more about the events that lead to the ship striking the iceberg and the aftermath.

Daniel Allen Butler delivered. Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic starts with the inception of the idea for Titanic and covers everything until the 100th anniversary of the sinking. I really like how Butler sheds light on things that aren't generally talked about when people discuss the Titanic, like how 75% of the crew died when the ship sank. He also goes through great pains to impress upon the reader to not judge the passengers too hard. Society was much different in 1912 than it is today and it's unfair to pass judgement on them by today's standards.

Butler himself used A Night to Remember as a large reference for the night of the sinking. Many of the quotes from the night of April 14-15 were taken directly of Lord's text (apparently Lord served as a kind of mentor to Butler). So many seemingly little things lead to the disaster but Butler makes it clear that if it weren't the Titanic that sank with great tragedy, it would have been the Olympic or Mauritania or another of the luxury liners of the day.

This book hit all the right buttons for me. It was an enjoyable read, well-placed, and packed with information.

B+

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saw this at the library in a display of Titanic books (because of the current exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature). Once you get past the first boring chapter (I honestly don't care how and why it was built), it gets into fascinating personal accounts, and the author tries not to put the blame on any one person. It was a culmination of all the "standards" of the day. Saw the exhibit, too, and while interesting to see some things "in person", this book gave much more detail. Especially of the other ships in the area, and the investigations afterwards, both legal and physical.

[Natalie L · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book when it was called A Night to Remember. If you're going to nearly copy a book word for word at least have the decency to correct the original Author's (Walter Lord's) proven mistakes. This book may seem useful if you've never studied Titanic's demise but if you're a titanic enthusiast, the book is useful for keeping a patio table from wobbling.

[Ashley Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very resourceful but of you have read A Night To Remember by Walter Lord, I would not recommend it because he mentions a lot of the same information.

[David Allen Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Put simply, although written over 20 years ago, this is the single best overall book on the Titanic. Fascinated since a boy by the disaster, I have read almost every book ever printed on the disaster since 1912, and no other book does such a good job of examining accurately every single aspect of the incident, and I am sorry this book is not better known. Every aspect of the Titanic--from conceptulalization, to construction, to the voyage, the sinking, the rescue, the investigations, the passengers, the philosophy, the response of the Carpathia and non-response of the Californian; to the burials, and the wreck discovery-- are put forth clearly in Unsinkable, carefully analyzed across all available information across nearly 85 years. I have read this book several times, and remain convinced it is the best, most comprehensive and most accurate account of the Titanic disaster. Other works may go into more detail on a particular aspect of the tragedy; many other books argue a particular viewpoint on the tragedy; but no other book gives such a comprehensive, balanced account of the disaster than Unsinkable does. If you read only one book to learn about the Titanic, make it this one. And if you add in the author's other notable work The Other Side of Night which is the best account of the Carpathia and Californian, you will get the best possible understanding of the Titanic.

The only omission I have ever found in this book is its failure to mention that shortly after the Titanic hit the iceberg, the captain started the engines up again at "slow ahead" for a few minutes, an action that drove water into the vessel through its damage and may also have contributed to the catastrophic bulkhead failure between compartments 5 and 6 that sealed the ship's fate. That the engines were started up again for a short period is reported in numerous other sources but strangely is not covered in Unsinkable.

Overall though this book is the best one volume account of the Titanic and I wish was better known. The only other comparable book is the late 1960s The Maiden Voyage by Geoffrey Marcus but that book written long before the wreck was discovered, does not of course talk about the wreck's discovery and inspection from 1986 on. Unsinkable is highly recommended to anyone with interest in the Titanic.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

a really good book on the complete Titanic saga. a literal minute-by-minute account of the sinking of this amazing ship, after a detailed background on the people associated with her. the one thing that i took away from this book is a rather haunting question asked by the author: what motivated the crew of this ship to help save the passengers when they must have known that there was little hope for their own survival? a dedication to duty and honor? i guess we'll never know. it makes one wonder if the outcome would have been the same if one applied today's sensibilities to that tragedy. a very detailed account.

[Jessica Haynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has by far been my favorite account of the Titanic disaster yet. It is almost overly detailed, yet the author writes about the matter with just the right blend of emotion to keep you drawn in. I also like how he goes back and explains his reasoning behind some of the theories he had, which all make perfect sense to me.

[Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

At 68%, I'm doing something I've only ever done with one other "Titanic" book in my life: I'm DNF'ing it.

I read an earlier edition of this book many years ago, and I've grown and learned a lot since then. When I saw that the book had been re-released as an updated version, I thought, "Hey, I should read this again!"

MISTAKE. While it started out promisingly, it didn't keep going that way.

First of all, the good (because there was some):

There were some anecdotes in "Unsinkable" I've not seen anywhere else. There were asides about passengers and crewmembers, which gave it a more intimate feel than a lot of other "Titanic" books I've read. It also included Charles Hays's comment during the voyage: "The White Star, the Cunard, and the Hamburg-Amerika liners are devoting their attention and ingenuity in vying with them to obtain supremacy in luxurious ships and in making speed records. The time will soon come when this is checked by some appalling disaster." His comment is made all the more chilling when you realize he said this on April 14th, only a few hours before "Titanic" met the iceberg. Also, this is one of the few places where I've seen someone else have the same theory I do - that it was, in fact, Chief Officer Wilde who committed suicide (if an officer did indeed do so) instead of First Officer Murdoch. The Murdoch theory has puzzled me for years - I suppose people latch on to him simply because he was the Officer of the Watch at the time of the collision, and people think it gave him a sense of guilt, or something. (And that's what James Cameron did in his film, and, yanno, James Cameron.) But if you listen to the testimony of his actions that night, cataloging carefully how many places he went and how much he did, this does not indicate the actions of a man contemplating suicide to me. I honestly believe Murdoch died when that huge wave washed down the Boat Deck, in the last moments before Collapsible A was washed off. Or, if he did not drown then, he likely died when the forward funnel collapsed - his last reported position put him in a likely place for this to happen, sadly.

CO Wilde, on the other hand, is a far better fit for the actions typically attributed to Murdoch. He behaved very erratically that night, often gave conflicting orders, and eventually just kind of disappears. There is enough evidence to make me think that he might have had a mental break (ditto Captain Smith, who shared some of Wilde's rather strange behavior more than once over the course of those 2 hrs 40 mins). Past a certain point, he positively vanishes from both passenger and crew testimony - unlike Murdoch, who people repeatedly report seeing (by name) right up almost to the end. If indeed it was Wilde who committed suicide, it might also explain another strange phenomenon I've encountered several times while reading crew testimony in both the American and British inquiries: several crewmembers refer to Murdoch as "Chief Officer Murdoch" (which he would become if his superior died, or was otherwise unable to do his duty). Some refer to Murdoch as "First Officer" up to a certain point that night, then revert to calling him "Chief Officer Murdoch" - perhaps an unspoken hint as to Wilde's fate?

Ultimately, we'll never know for sure. Neither man's body was recovered, so at this point all we can do is speculate and do our best to take what evidence we have and make the most sense out of it to our best abilities.

Now, unfortunately, the bad (let me just add here a disclaimer that, unlike Butler, I am making no excuses as to attempts to try to remain "unemotional" on the following subjects. I, dear Reader, AM unashamedly emotional, though I am also trying to be factual):

Chapter 10 is the worst offender in the following catalogue of faults I found. While Butler seems to have done his research in other areas of "Titanic" lore, as far as I can tell he merely parrots what he's heard other people say/write about "Californian." The vitriol he spews all over Captain Lord, the way his hatred for the poor man literally radiates off the page - it made me physically sick to my stomach while I was reading. (It's made even worse by his speech at the beginning of the book, where he states that this happened in a different time, with different social expectations and reactions, and that he was going to write the book in a factual sort of way and not really color it with emotion [especially modern emotion]. It makes his treatment of Stanley Lord even more reprehensible in that light.) If a piece of testimony doesn't fit his narrative, he ignores it - or outright changes it. For example, when speaking of the rockets "Californian" saw that night, he says they, "rose high over the masts of the mystery ship, then exploded." The crewmembers on "Californian" who saw them were actually quite puzzled by these signals, because they in fact did NOT rise high over the mast, instead stopping short of the halfway point. It was a strange thing, sure enough, but considering the officers (most of whom testify multiple times to this fact save for Gibson [see further below for more on him]) didn't think the ship was in distress, because it wasn't acting like it (after all, as one officer says, "A ship in distress does NOT steam away from you, my Lord"), they just kind of shrugged it off. Butler also refers to white rockets as the "internationally recognized signal of distress on the sea," which is almost laughably incorrect. White rockets were used as identifiers for a certain ship's line, for celebration aboard a ship, to illuminate the water around a ship if they felt they needed some extra light, and for any other number of reasons. In fact, rockets (white or any other color for that matter) were not specifically used as a signal of danger until at least the 1940s (when red, not white, was assigned to this meaning). In 1912, they were only used for distress when other forms of distress signals (specifically burning a barrel on deck and firing off a ship's gun [or making some other kind of noise] has been used either to no effect, or in addition to the former) were ineffective, or to be used at the same time. (The items listed were to be used in that order, according to the Board of Trade's rules.) He also parrots the "there were only 8 rockets fired, all white" line - a careful reading of the testimony proves, thanks to many passengers and crew, as many as 15-18 rockets total were fired, and in a combination of white and colored. (The "8 rockets" theory was made up by Mersey for convenience's sake - more on him later in this review.) He also completely omits mention of all testimony given by people on board "Titanic" who reported their mystery ship moving, and even approaching to within 2-3 miles - "Californian" did not move at all that night, save for spinning in the natural current and drifting slightly (and never turned in the right way to show her red light to "Titanic"). She was definitely not under steam, unlike "Titanic"s mystery ship. Rostron did not see "Californian" when the sun came up the next morning, which he would have if she had been "Titanic"s mystery ship. If "Californian" had been there, the lifeboats would have had a choice - row to "Carpathia," or row to "Californian." The mystery ship "Titanic" saw sailed away shortly after the luxury liner sank. (Butler also makes several snide and sarcastic comments about "Californian" and their lack of picking up any bodies - and says that it was "Mount Temple" who stayed a long time to look for bodies, instead of "Californian." Mount Temple kept a healthy distance from the disaster site and quickly got back under way around the same time "Carpathia" did. Butler claims "Californian" did not try. No, "Mount Temple" did not try, save for sailing to "Titanic"s distress location and then refusing to cross the ice field to her actual sinking site (unlike "Californian," who crossed said field a total of 3 times, at their own considerable risk). "Californian" did. They didn't see any bodies - neither did "Carpathia" after they cruised around for a while, and yet Butler had no rude things to say about Rostron or "Carpathia.") Butler also attributes way too much praise to Gill and his testimony, even though it is filled with unlikely scenarios (he goes up in his regular clothes, sans any sort of coat or other protective gear, in thirty-two degrees Farenheit weather, to smoke one cigarette? That lasts that long? And he stays out there for over half an hour? And Butler thinks this guy is reliable?) and is riddled with errors. (He's watching a ship that is supposedly moving at over 22 knots, which should have come into and gone out of sight much faster than he claims it did. Which, if you look at other testimony from Lord and Stone especially, the ship they spotted is in fact moving slowly, and not crashing along at 22 knots like "Titanic" was. From their reports, it was likely moving along at least half as fast.) He points to Gill's saying, "I'll be fired for this" to prove the donkeyman (that is the official title of his role on board, not a comment from me as to his character, by the way) correct, even though he was paid $500 for the article which started all this mess. It made him a very rich man (at least, rich for 1912), which means he no longer HAD to work to make money. He made himself look like a victim, and (some) people actually bought that. Also ignored was the fact that Gibson, whose testimony Butler also relied so heavily on, allowed himself to be badgered mercilessly on the stand by both Mersey and Isaacs until he gave up and said what they wanted him to say.

And this leads me to yet another of Butler's puzzling pieces of logic. He praises Mersey and the entire British inquiry for its "thoroughness" (his words, not mine) and unequivocally states it was not a whitewash despite a preponderance of evidence otherwise. (The Board of Trade was responsible for sending "Titanic" out, for supervising "Titanic" during her construction, for putting an "OK" stamp on insufficient and inadequate equipment, and for several laws that were terribly out of date. They were also in charge of the inquiry into their own behavior in relation to the "Titanic" disaster. Not only is this a conflict of interest, but they could not allow even a hint of something which could potentially destroy the British supremacy of the waves to get out. Remember, this happened on the eve of WWI, so anything that even resembled a weakness had to be ruthlessly snuffed out. So YES, it was a whitewash.) Mersey and Isaacs frequently harassed and bullied people on the stand into giving evidence that supported their own theories (which often did not line up with the facts [one of Mersey's favorite phrases was "the answers you give do not please me at present" if things didn't go the way he wanted]), and if anything even approaching what seemed like true (albeit unpleasant or unflattering) testimony started to come out, the subject was quickly changed and the witness shut down. Mersey had already decided to lay the blame of the high death toll of "Titanic" on Captain Lord and the "Californian" despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary (including the fact she was on course to Boston, and "Titanic" to New York, and the two are very far away from each other. "Californian" had not deviated from course [Marconi evidence from her and other ships back this up], and "Titanic"s turn earlier in the evening actually put her farther away from "Californian," though still on track for New York, so neither ship had cause to be anywhere close to the other). In testimony, you can read where Mersey and Isaacs are talking about Capt. Lord and the "Californian" in several instances, intimating that it's an easy target and one they're absolutely going to take advantage of. They also knew if they put Capt. Lord on the stand in a capacity other than a witness, he would be able to legally defend himself - and the British Inquiry would NOT have been the winner of that fight.

Also, Butler appears to be chummy with Harland and Wolff, because he subscribes wholeheartedly to the "'Titanic' broke up on the way down" theory, instead of the truth of her breaking up on the surface (as has been proven time and time again - not just from passenger & crew testimony, but from multiple studies of the wreck's positioning on the sea floor, and scientific study and experimentation as to how she could have gotten there, specifically). According to him, she departed the surface in one piece - as equally untrue now as it was in 1912 when people like Lightoller and Beesley claimed the same thing. H&W has a history of being violently opposed to anything suggesting she broke apart at the surface (seriously - read Charles Pelligrino's "Farewell, Titanic" to see what some H&W employees did on one of his expeditions to the wreck site, including but not limited to lies and destruction).

Ordinarily I highly enjoy "Titanic" books, even older ones which are very obviously out of date (ones written before 1985 and her rediscovery, for example). But this one makes me very tired, and angry, and disappointed. I'll not be reading it (in either its former or updated formats) again. I am so tired of seeing these same old things brought up again and again. This is how so many myths and untruths about "Titanic" (and yes, "Californian") have been allowed to survive for so many years. People read something, or hear something, and without bothering to do any checking of their own (particularly in the case of the "Californian," perhaps more than in any other way), present it as fact. It does a disservice to the true "Titanic," the true "Californian," the ones which sailed over a century ago, and instead replaces them with some fictitious stand-ins which bear little resemblance to the true things.

And that, dear Readers, is also its own form of tragedy.

One star out of five, and not recommended.

[LibraryCin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book about the Titanic. This one is quite detailed: it starts with the building of the ship and continues through the sailing and the night the ship sank. It includes the investigations (one in the US, one in the UK) into what happened afterward, and follows up with what happened to some of the survivors.

I have read so much about the Titanic, so I do “know”/recognize some of the names of some of the guests on the ship (yes, beyond John Jacob Astor), but it continues to fascinate. Again, this was quite detailed, so I lost a bit of interest in the building of the ship, but overall, this is very good - in part, because of all the detail. The author has also written a separate book on the Carpathia and the Californian, the two ships that were closest. The Californian, within sight distance, did nothing to help. The Carpathia, though about four hours away, raced as fast as it could to help. It was the Carpathia that picked up the people off the lifeboats, so the author is well versed in that perspective, as well. This book was originally published in 1998, but this was a 2012 edition, so there was an extra chapter with updates. Given all the detail in this one, it’s probably one of the better Titanic books.

[Roxanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of the all the books in my growing "Titanic Library", this has been one of the most interesting and thorough reads yet. As someone who isn't terribly familiar with early 20th century culture and such, the details the author puts forth in this book are intriguing. It's commonplace to snap judge anything, anyone and the story of the Titanic is no different. People(even today) ridiculed Ismay, praised Smith unquestionably and condemned the lack of aid to help the Third Class. (This isn't to sum up my personal opinion on these particular subjects as I am reserving my judgement or better yet, leaving judgement at bay.) But like any good story there are two sides. From the behaviors of social classes, to a Sailor's morals and even the hypocrisy of the women's suffrage movement where the Titanic tragedy was involved. This has encouraged me more to read up on this era and to better understand it myself. All in all I recommend this to anyone with even the faintest interest in the Titanic. Well researched and the facts laid out.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Well-researched and factual, and contained a lot of information that I had previously gleaned from other sources (movies, books, etc.) - but also added a lot of new information and personal perspectives that were previously missing.

Mr. Butler does a good job of tying all of this information together in a logical, chronological clear and concise manner, while at the same time making this a very good read. Initially, I felt that, at the end of the actual book, it ended a bit abruptly, but then after reading through the two appendices, a lot of questions and information I expected would have been included, were there and documented.

This was an easy read; it was easy to read, put it down, come back later and pick it up, which I appreciated. I will likely read this book again when I can devote two or three nights to it, and I fully expect to enjoy it as much, if not more, on the 2nd read. Great book and well worth the read!!!

[Lyndsey Bromley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I had the time to thoroughly review this in the capacity it deserves, but there's only so many minutes in an hour...er, before I go to bed. So, this is a chopped down version, but here goes despite the constraint.
Without a doubt, this novel is my number-one Titanic comprehensive history resource. It took a while to sift through, not because of terrible narrative or any of those horrors, but because it's a lot of information to retain. This might be a challenging for some (specifically those in which this is their first Titanic non-fiction novel), so take that in mind, but it's worth it.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been thrilled by the story of the Titanic since I was a kid and my mom bought the video of Robery Ballard's search and discovery of the wreck of the Titanic. Such an intreguing story and this book tells it so well in every detail from so many different vantage points getting down to the real facts. It's great right up until the descriptions of the post-accident trials which, unfortunately, could have used some translating of the flowery English vocabulary used by the judges in the trials. Otherwise, it was very hard to put down.

[Gerilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lifelong Titanic buff (the wreck was discovered the year I turned 10, a very impressionable age), I was thrilled to pick this up at a library book sale in San Diego. I've read many a Titanic history, but this one tops them all. I loved the comprehensive scope, from the design and building details to the full appendix with facts and figures. The larger-than-life cast of characters is boldly and sympathetically described as well. A fascinating and well-done book. And no, I do NOT like the movie.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book fills in a lot more information about the Titanic and the people associated with her. It starts from the original decision to build the ship and ends with a discussion of the discovery of the wreck at the bottom of the ocean. The lives of a few of the people were a bit more fully revealed in this book than in A Night to Remember. I recommend the latter for people who want a quick compelling read about the Titanic, and this one for those who are hungry for a more thoroughly detailed account. I really enjoyed it!

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Butler deals with the character of the times and explains how societal hubris and a belief in the infallibility of modern invention led to the tragic death of 1,500 people. He does not attempt to exonerate or blame anyone individual, so the myths are dispelled and the facts laid bare. God will not be mocked.

The tragedy was self inflicted. Self deception is so powerful that only after events play out, hindsight shows that the end of the story was, all along, inevitable.

[Dori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really learned alot about the thinking of the day and age of this accident. It will always be a great loss and tragic but this book helps understand how some of the things were done that turned the shipinto a deathtrap.

I recommend it for any one who is interested in the Titanic or nature of doing business in; the first decade of 1900's: the shipping industry, society, or social classes.

[Tamra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read quite a few books documenting the sinking of the Titanic but I really liked the style with which this one was written. Although there wasn't much in the way of startling new revelations or facts, it was still captivating and well-written. It brought many of the players in the Titanic story more to life.

[Shirley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched book (written in 1998) using all primary sources and little editorial comment. Great insight into Edwardian society and the mindset behind the myriad of decisions that ultimately led to the disastrous sinking of the Titanic. So many stories of (mainly) courage and cowardice and absolutely fascinating reading!

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great blend of technical detail and personal accounts. This book made the individual stories of the Titanic shine, while setting it properly in the framework of the technology of the time, the society of the Edwardian era, and the traditions of the great ocean liners. It was quite enjoyable to read.

[Taylor Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book chronicles from the inception of the idea of Titanic to remembrance of those lost. It was an EXTREMELY interesting book about every leg of the Titanic's voyage. Take the time to read about the tragedy that you think you know all about- it'll make you anaylze yourself and YOUR character. It'll make you put yourself in the shoes of those there that night. Read it, let's talk about it.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I saw the dense print, appendices and index, I was concerned this book might be too dull, too scholarly or too technical for my tastes, but it was actually quite readable and interesting. Still a heart-breaking story nearly a century after the event.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read this book, I had an elderly room mate whose mother was immigrating from Romania. She had booked passage on the Titanic and was going to catch the ship in Ireland. When she tried to board the ship, she was turned away because there was no room, even though she had bought a ticket.

[Ayelet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good summary of all the Titanic research to date. I never tire of reading about it. This summary makes you particularly annoyed with the ship that was nearby and didn't come to their aid. They came up with many excuses but none that would soothe my conscious if I were them.

[Gabby Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very 3rd person what happened on Titanic. I thought compared to other books it was very accurate and I did learn new things from this book (hopefully gonna do some deeper research) I personally read this in one day! So good.