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Lusitania
An Epic Tragedy
Diana Preston

Reviews of Lusitania

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"Diana Preston's panorama of the 'epic tragedy' of the Lusitania is enlargened by her picture of the bustling life aboard the liner before it sank, and by her following pages on the hard, wet, crowded, dangerous existence within a German submarine, where a man off duty was expected to sleep in order to conserve the common oxygen. Her eye for the piquant detail generates a glittering web of trivia...nothing is irrelevant, and Preston's farraginous method shapes a fitting monument to a multitudinous loss."—John Updike,The New Yorker

"In Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy, Diana Preston painstakingly reconstructs the catastrophe. The horrifying scenes she brings to life have the vivid quality of vintage photographs."
— Time Magazine

"Ms. Preston's handling of the diplomatic context is…fluid and useful; her portrait of a world convulsed in war is compelling and comprehensive." —The Wall Street Journal

“Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy hardly feels like a history lesson. Preston's archival thoroughness is nicely balanced by a novelist's sense of pacing.... Preston may claim, in her preface, that the great ship's destruction is a story that is "above all, about people," but her own excellent account, broad in scope and rich in devastating detail, reminds us that the tragedies of individual people result from larger, more epic failures. However improbably, her terrific new book is a story for our time.“ —Daniel Mendlesohn, New York Magazine

“(LUSITANIA is) a book as majestic as its subject... . Preston... is a consummate popular historian who knows how to humanize a narrative while remaining scrupulously true to the facts. She is also a stylish and elegant writer whose prose carries one along on waves of excitement. She not only tells a story as gripping as Walter Lord did with that much better known sea disaster, the loss of the Titanic, but goes farther than he in linking her central event with the history of the times. Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Winston Churchill, among other important personages, make appearances as dramatic as that of the little girl who remembers her doomed sister's hand slipping through hers as the waves tore them apart.” —Chicago Sun-Times

"Aptly subtitled "an epic tragedy," Diana Preston's new account of the Lusitania's last voyage reflects the reality of the period in a way that few other books on World War I have matched. Preston's gifts as a writer of narrative history place her in the company of Barbara Tuchman and a handful of other historians who have revealed the Great War as a staggering human tragedy that forever altered the way people think and act....Preston's book is likely to become the definitive account of the Lusitania tragedy." –Phildelphia Inquirer Read full review

"Historian Diana Preston's account of the politics of the sinking in her new book, Lusitania, is masterful."
–Seattle Times Read full review

“(Preston's) ability to summarize the global issues of the day as well as to incorporate minutiae — right down to the color of a passenger's socks and the pattern of his stickpin —gives the story a striking, second-by-second imminence...This is no shallow tale written with movie rights in mind, but a work of scholarship that used careful reporting to bring a vast drama to life...Preston's book is the only one to incorporate not only the recollections of Lusitania survivors but also those of the German submarine captain and the crew.“ —Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy is an onslaught of facts woven into a mesmerizing, novel-like account of this catastrophic event. Preston takes the reader on a nail-biting, increasingly tense voyage from New York into the deadly, submarine-infested waters of the Irish Sea. Strap on your life jacket, pull up a deckchair and settle in.... This is mandatory reading for lovers of history, students of maritime disasters, and those who simply can't resist captivating non-fiction."—Charlotte Observer

"Diana Preston has written a fascinating and vividly detailed story of this major maritime catastrophe. Drawing upon memoirs, letters and interviews with survivors, plus newly accessible American and British Admiralty archives and German documents, Preston not only carefully reconstructs the disaster but also gives a consice picture of the political/military context in which the event took place."
—The Houston Chronicle

"The author is exhaustive and detailed, running down every available archive, recording every comment commited to paper."—The Washington Times

"Diana Preston, historian and journalist, provides a stunning account of the disaster and its far reaching consequences. This is a story that shocked the world. It is filled with human drama, political intrigue and espionage in addition to the author's provocative coverage of world politics before World War I."—Providence Journal

"In exploring the many perspective and newly available resources on the sinking of the Lusitania, Diana Preston has written the definitive account of the disaster."—British Heritage

“Drawing on archives, court records and personal accounts, historian Diana Preston effectively places the heroism, tragedy and culpability of individuals against the backdrop of World War I. Especially intriguing is the perspective of the German U-boat captain and his crew. Preston convincingly debunks the myth that the United States entered the war as an immediate consequence of the sinking, and she informatively addresses the evolving code of conduct of submarine warfare and the growing impact of public opinion on the rules of engagement.”—Rob Mitchell, Boston Herald

"As vivid as Preston�s descriptions are elsewhere, they rise to the level of poetry when she describes the chaos and elegant acts of heroism that occur as the great ship goes down."
—-Bookpage

“For the determinedly curious, Preston's new account is much the best of the lot. Unlike some earlier accounts, hers eschews sensationalism about the tracking and sinking of the ship; but it nevertheless offers her own hypothesis about the second, post-torpedo explosion that sent the ship down in 18 minutes.... �[Ramsay's] book -- no "saga" as subtitled -- constitutes a wan effort compared to Preston's substantial and colorful account. Although we know the grisly outcome in advance, her Lusitania, alternately sentimental and macabre, tugs at the emotions.” —Stanley Weintraub, Washington Post Book World
"Preston provides thrills and chills with this tale of the May 1915 sinking of the Lusitania....[and] offers myriad details to recreate the look and feel of the Lusitania’s last voyage. With a realistic view of the tangle of world politics in the WWI era [and]… human details to back up the political analysis, this fluently written item would seem a natural for history buffs."
—Publishers Weekly

"The destruction of the liner Lusitania in 1915 is two stories rolled into one: a Titanic-type tale of personal catastrophes and a still murky diplomatic incident of the first order. And that applies, too, to Preston’s brilliant account of the episode…. Her thorough research is elegantly conveyed by a humanizing narrative that covers everyone involved…. A captivating and conscientious narrative of the disaster and its consequences."
—Booklist (starred review)

"In a lively narrative, Preston examines the torpedoing of the British liner Lusitania by the German U-20 in 1915. Preston re-creates the physical conditions of ship life—aboard both the Lusitania and the U-boat—as well as the political and military context that led to the Lusitania's destruction, with the loss of over 1200 people. Perhaps Preston's greatest contribution to the historical record is helping to debunk some of the conspiracy theories associated with the book…This book is effectively written, researched, and argued."
-Library Journal (starred review)

"A vivid reconstruction of the famed ocean liner's demise and its history-altering consequences. The Cunard liner Lusitania was a veritable floating city, capable of carrying thousands of passengers who, on a typical crossing from Liverpool to New York, consumed "40,000 eggs, 4,000 pounds of fresh fish, two tons of bacon and ham, 4,000 pounds of coffee, 1, 000 pineapples, 500 pounds of grapes, 1, 000 lemons, 25, 000 pounds of meat, nearly 3,000 gallons of milk, over 500 gallons of cream, and 30, 000 loaves of bread." Telling details such as these are the stuff in which popular historian Preston trades. She is equally devoted to small touches when it comes to writing about major players in the Lusitania's unfortunate end…Its aftermath ultimately changed the outcome of the war for reason s that Preston does a characteristically fine job of explaining. Top-drawer military history, engagingly told."
-Kirkus Reviews

" [A] stylish and elegant retelling, …few popular historians–Walter Lord was one of them–can marshal facts and place them within their times as vividly as she does. Preston… not only relates the human drama of the sinking in terms that rival Lord’s story of the Titanic, but also draws in the powerful personages of the time… and the currents that led to the disaster as well as the waves of history it started rolling."
–Henry Kisor, msnbc.com

"This is the most comprehensive account of the sinking of the Lusitania that I have ever seen, complete with diplomatic background, technical context and human interest. Anyone seeking a full explanation of its historical importance need look no further."–Dan van der Vat, author of Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy

About Diana Preston