James Dugan
History, engineering
I don't think I can put it any better than the back cover.
This [the S.S. Great Eastern] is the ship thatAside from that, The Great Iron Ship is well-written, occasionally sardonic, briskly-paced, not exhaustively deep, and well-structured as a narrative. I think Dugan pays maybe a little too much attention to the so-called "jinx" on the Great Eastern. To my mind, the real story is not the jinx but just how astonishingly it was, in the mid-19th century, people getting randomly killed or maimed in fights or crowds or just weird stuff. (Imagine someone getting killed nowadays by an accident when firing a 21-gun salute, for example. It wouldn't just be waved off!) And, of course, I want more engineering! Still, a very good book.
- Killed her designer
- Drowned her first captain
- Logged four mutinies
- Killed thirty-five men
- Survived the Atlantic's weirdest storm
- Laid the Atlantic Cable
- Sank four ships
- Made six knights
- Caused sixteen lawsuits
- Was six times at auction
- Boarded two million sightseers
- Ended as a floating circus
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