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The tragedy of the Titanic has fascinated all since she sank with 1,500 of her passengers and crew in 1912. Much later, scientist Robert Ballard set out to find and explore the wreck, despite difficulties of depth and location. Using the research submarine Alvin and a remote-controlled underwater robot, he was the first human in over 70 years to see the giant resting beneath the North Atlantic waves. Secrets of the Titanic tells the story of the events leading up to the sinking using footage and photographs from the doomed maiden voyage and then follows the luckier Dr. Ballard through the steps leading to his discovery. As usual for National Geographic, the photography is excellent, even within the cramped confines of the tiny Alvin. The first views of the Titanic's interior are truly spectacular, especially when contrasted with vintage photos, and the excitement of Ballard and his crew is contagious. The spirit and joys of discovery are well captured and the viewer is reminded that the world is still teeming with opportunities for adventure.
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Marx captured the essence of true adventurers and treasure hunters in a fascinating read. You're gonna love this book!
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It has been called "the greatest naval battle since Trafalgar." On June 4, 1942, near a tiny island 1,500 miles from Hawaii, the course of the Pacific War changed dramatically. Before the battle of Midway the forces of Imperial Japan seemed unstoppable. After Midway the Japanese would never again take the offensive.
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In July 1946 a fleet of 242 ships, among them some of the most famous of World War II, assembled within the lagoon of Bikini Atoll, 4,500 miles from San Francisco. There, in a massive military effort dubbed Operation Crossroads, thousands of scientists and U.S. military personnel gathered to assess the atomic bomb's effect on warships in the world's first nuclear weapons tests.
Four decades later, in 1989, a highly trained team of underwater archaeologists returned to Bikini to evalu-ate the ships as historic and archaeological sites and as potential diving attractions. In Ghost Fleet, author James Delgado, a member of that team, offers a fascinating account of Operation Crossroads and the forgotten remains that have turned Bikini's lagoon into a vast underwater ghost town.
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Given the recent popularity of true-life adventure sagas, Viking is probably correct in anticipating major interest in this accessible narrative of the tragic 1820s whaling voyage whose central disaster was the violent encounter with a sperm whale, which inspired the climactic scene in Melville's Moby Dick. Philbrick, director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies and champion sailboat racer, is well qualified to describe the issues raised by the Essex's final whale hunt. Those issues included Nantucket's unusual commercial, religious, and social characteristics; the class and racial aspects of Nantucket whaling; whaleboat crewmen's responsibilities and the maritime conditions they faced; types of whales that Nantucketers chased; the work involved in transforming the carcasses of these huge mammals into casks of oil; types of leadership appropriate at different stages of a disaster; and the biological and psychological effects of starvation, dehydration, and cannibalism. For more than 150 years, the primary source of information about the Essex was a volume that first mate Owen Chase, later a successful whaling captain, prepared with a ghostwriter; a summary by the ship's cabin boy, prepared some 50 years after the wreck, was found and published in the 1980s. Philbrick draws on both, using the cabin boy's more class-conscious narrative to correct the often self-serving prose of the mate. A fascinating tale, well told.
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