The Ocean Railway: Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Samuel Cunard and the Revolutionary World of the Great Atlantic Steamships - Hardcover

Fox, Stephen

4.25

75 ratings by Goodreads

9780002571852: The Ocean Railway: Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Samuel Cunard and the Revolutionary World of the Great Atlantic Steamships

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002571854 ISBN 13: 9780002571852

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

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An epic social history of steamship travel from the nineteenth century to the Lusitania, the Mauretania and the Titanic.

The great transatlantic steamships became emblems of an age, of a Victorian audacity of spirit-cathedrals to man's harnessing of new technology. Through the innovations and designs of key engineers and shipping magnates-Samuel Cunard, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Edward Knights Collins-'the largest movable objects in human history' were created. To the wealthy, steamships represented glamorous travel, but to most they offered cheap passage out of Europe to the New World. At their peak, steamships delivered one million new Americans each year, transforming the world's oceans from barriers into highways.

In this fascinating history, Stephen Fox chronicles the tragedies that marked the evolution of the ocean liner, including the 1852 sinking of the Arctic, with the loss of 322 lives, and the early-twentieth-century losses of the Lusitania and the Titanic. Using contemporary records, diaries and writing, he penetrates the experience of transatlantic passage and examines the societies created on the vast floating cities, 'a kind of third human environment, neither land nor sea but partaking of each, and bridging them in unprecedented ways.’

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Review:

‘One of the innumerable merits of Stephen Fox’s absorbing history of transatlantic steam travel is the way he balances the romance and the reality.’
Sunday Telegraph

‘Impressively detailed.’
The Times

‘Enthralling’
Sunday Times

Synopsis:

The great transatlantic steamship lines revolutionized Anglo-American commerce and travel. In a wave of British and American entrepreneurial zeal, the ploddingly slow, ugly and uncomfortable vessels of the early 19th century were transformed into vast, swift, graceful and often luxurious ocean-going liners. Steamships became emblems of an age, of a Victorian audacity of spirit - cathedrals to man's harnessing of new technology. Through the innovations and designs of key engineers and shipping magnates - Samuel Cunard (later Sir), Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Edward Knights Collins - "the largest moveable objects in human history" were created, and under turbine propulsion transatlantic crossing times shrank from six weeks to six days. To the wealthy, the great steamships would come to represent travel with style and glamour, but to most they offered cheap fast passage out of Europe to the New World and new opportunities. At their peak, the steamships would deliver one million new Americans each year, transforming the world's oceans from barriers into highways.

In this book, Stephen Fox also chronicles the tragedies that marked the evolution of the ocean liner, including, the sinking, in 1852, of Edward Knight Collins' steamship the Arctic, with the loss of 322 lives including Collins' wife and daughter, alongside the early 20th century losses of the Lusitania and the Titanic. Stephen Fox recreates the experience of transatlantic passage through contemporary records, diaries and writings (including those of Dickens and Emerson), and examines the societies created on the vast floating cities with cultures and conditions of their own.

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