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Title: The Sea Shall Embrace Them: The Tragic Story of the Steamship Arctic by David W. Shaw ISBN: 0-7432-2217-2 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A tale of cowardice and tragedy
Comment: It's always refreshing to find a book that tells me about a little known incident in American history. This book, concerning the 1854 sinking of the steamship Arctic, is one of those books. As an added bonus, it's extremely well-written, reading almost as if it were a novel. There are a lot of nautical terms thrown about, but there is a glossary to help those, like myself, who are unfamiliar with them. We get a capsule history of the Great Race across the Atlantic between competing British and American companies, and a bit about ship design 150 years ago, when most were wooden, with side paddle wheels. The story about the collision of the Arctic with another ship, and the subsequent tragedy that happened because many crew members ignored the adage "women and children first" is heartbreaking. The astonishing survival of some of the folks from the ship, including the captain, is quite riveting, in large part because of the excellent writing involved. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it to others.
Rating: 4
Summary: written with broad knowledge of the sea and the era
Comment: David W. Shaw has given us a gripping account of the steamship Arctic, which sank in September 1854 while making a crossing from Liverpool. The book is informed by his wide knowledge as a seaman, and his grasp of the economic competition between U.S. ship company owner Collins and his British rival, Cunard. The steamship was traveling as quickly as its boilers could take it, even in inpenetrable fog, when it collided with a smaller vessel, the French steamship, Vesta.
Ironically at first, it looked as it the Vesta was fatally damaged, and Captain Luce of the Arctic had to make one of the toughest decisions a mariner must face: He had to try to save his own passengers and crew and leave the people on the Vesta to their fates. But it soon became apparent that the Arctic was sinking quickly, without nearly enough lifeboats for all the people on board. In the chaos that followed, all the women and children passengers were lost. Only the strongest and most agile survived, most of them crew members. As for the Vesta, although many suffered loss of life, the ship was able to limp into Newfoundland days later.
Shaw writes well, although occasionally his foreshadowing is heavily overdone. This can be partially excused, since we know the tragic outcome of the tale, but it gives his work an amateurish quality. Overall, this harrowingly sad sea yarn will hold your attention throughout.
Rating: 5
Summary: "the sea is an unforgiving body"
Comment: Readers who approach Shaw's The Sea Shall Embrace Them as an academic historical account of the sinking of the American steamship Arctic in 1854 will be disappointed. Although Shaw mentions sources sporadically throughout the text (mostly at the beginning), most of the information, including quotations, are not referenced. Shaw writes a lot of details including what was going through the minds of the main people involved in the tragedy, their mannerisms, the environment they saw, etc. through interpretation.
If readers approach this work as history written for a mass audience presented with a novelist's flair, they will find this book to be riveting. The chapters are brief (most around 8 pages) and the story is interesting, exciting, and fast-moving. At times, it may be a little more flowery than most students of history are used to, but such possibly superfluous descriptions of scenery, etc. are not that distracting. It mostly affects a handful of pages in the first chapters, although my favorite example is on page 152: "...men and women, as well as their teenagers, children, and infants, would never again admire the blazing fall foliage soon to be dressing the environs of New York in a spectrum of orange, red, and yellow even more intense in color than when Arctic set off on her last voyage in September." The book does not always read like this, though. Of course, the story gets more exciting as it approaches the accident and sinking with huge loss of life; however, I also found the beginning chapters very interesting, especially the competition between the English Cunard Line and the American Collins Line for supremacy of the overseas mail. Cunard will of course be challenged later by the White Star Line which created Titanic and her sister ships. Much of this story has similarities to Titanic, so those who enjoy reading about the latter will probably find this book to be of great interest.
Shaw demonstrates an incredible amount of research. When listing the salaries of the Collins employees or the price of a ticket on the Arctic, he includes the equivalent in today's money which better explains his points (it cost over $2,300 in today's money for a first class one-way fair, pg 40. Ouch!). He also uncovers many interesting details. For example, 7 of the 9 ships Luce captained before Arctic sank under another captain's command (pg. 87).
Footnotes would help this book. For example, why does Shaw describe Luce as being depressed while setting of on his final voyage on the Arctic? Was the detail garnered from a diary entry or a later account made by the captain? Still, Shaw demonstrates vast knowledge of the sea and I am confident many of his details, while probably not derived directly from sources, is relatively accurate. Some elements are found lacking. For example, there is much information on those struggling for life on rafts and a paddle box, but nothing on those who left early in the lifeboats who survived. Possibly these survivors-mostly crew-feared reprisals if they gave their accounts, but such is not noted. Also, Shaw maintains that the seemingly doomed Vesta could have saved all passengers and crew on Arctic if Luce had stuck around (pg. 120). What substantiates this claim? Vesta was a smaller ship crippled by the collision. Did an inquiry come to this conclusion? For the most part though, Shaw tells the story quite thoroughly considering the amount of source material available. Shaw also explains why this story is important (the Arctic was a symbol of American pride). Although the ending seems a little skimpy, Shaw explains that, due to the times, there was not as much outrage over some of the disgraceful stories that came out as to the behavior of some of the crew members as one would expect in the sue-happy times in which we now live (pg. 203). Despite its faults in terms of documentation, The Sea Shall Embrace Them is a compelling tale beautifully told.
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