When That Great Ship Went Down: The Legal and Political Repercussions of the Loss of RMS Titanic

Book excerpt: Titanic sank in 1912, in the midst of a US presidential campaign and in the week in which the British government fought to give Home Rule to Ireland. JP Morgan, whose trusts owned the shipping line, became an immediate political target. Shares in the Marconi companies, credited with saving the survivors, rocketed - and three members of the British Cabinet had illicit share-holdings in Marconis. The shipbuilders refused to admit that the 1500 dead had died because their 'settled scientific consensus' - and US immigration laws - had doomed them. And a few staunch lawyers and judges, in Britain and America, refused to let political corruption and influence sway them from their duties. Praised by James Delingpole & Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, this is the story of the skulduggery and shabby compromises of 1912, the eventual revolution in safety measures that came of the disaster, and how Titanic sails on in shaping the modern world.