The Ocean Liner Age

For more than a century, ocean liners were the great moving cities of the sea. They carried migrants towards uncertain new lives, wealthy travellers through floating palaces, soldiers into global wars and mail, cargo and ideas between distant continents. The Ocean Liner Age traces the extraordinary development of scheduled passenger shipping from the first steam-powered Atlantic crossings to the arrival of the jet airliner. It enters the crowded accommodation below deck, the magnificent first-class salons above, the engine rooms that powered record-breaking voyages and the divided social world contained within each ship. Along the way, it explores the rise of Cunard, White Star, HAPAG, Norddeutscher Lloyd and other great shipping lines; the race for the Blue Riband; the migrations that reshaped nations; the disasters of Titanic and Lusitania; the wartime transformation of liners into troopships and hospital ships; and the final rivalry of vessels such as Normandie, Queen Mary and United States. This is the story of ships that became national symbols, instruments of empire, engines of migration and some of the greatest technological and artistic achievements of the modern age.