TITANIC

THE LAST GRAT IMAGES

RRP: £25.00
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9 781852 606152

Almost one hundred years after the great liner sank, Dr. Robert Ballard presents us with one last opportunity to read the story of the Titanic wreck before the famous ship‘s remains are gone forever.

For almost one hundred years, Titanic has rested in the still waters of the Atlantic, 12,500 feet below the surface. The living memories of the night of April 14 1912, when she hit an iceberg and sank with more than 1500 passengers aboard, are fading away with the last survivors. What remains the most tangible reminder of the Titanic story is the wreck itself.

Dr. Robert Ballard, who searched tirelessly for the wreck and discovered it in 1985, gave the world its first images of the great ship since she plunged to the bottom of the ocean. 'When it comes to the Titanic, I feel a sense of responsibility. I suppose it‘s like discovering an historical or archaeology site: it‘s not yours, it‘s owned by the human race, but one worries about it, one tries to protect it, and does everything one can for it‘.

Nearly twenty years later, Dr Robert Ballard returned to the wreck and has taken even more vivid photos. In Titanic The Last Great Images, these photos illuminate the majesty and grandeur of the world‘s most renowned maritime disaster.

'To sit by for twenty years and watch everyone have their way with Titanic - often doing things I wasn‘t terribly happy about - was hard. I saw this as an opportunity to pay my respects to the ship, somewhat apologizing for the mean-spirited way in which the wreck has been picked over and vandalized‘.

Dr Ballards first expedition took place when telepresence technology had been its earliest stages, his latest trip was to show the world that the technology had arrived for 'electronic travel‘. All shot in high definition, this book features the cleanest and clearest images yet of the underwater museum.

Dr Ballard‘s underwater photographs show the wreck and the surrounding debris field in painstaking detail. These new images reveal portions of the wreck from a variety of perspectives, taking us on a detailed tour of the ship. Using high-tech under-water image, historical black-and-white photos, and period illustrations, Titanic The Last Great Images recounts the tragic liner‘s history as never before.

Detailed images of Titanic‘s great reciprocating engines and massive boilers help us understand her technological significance as the culmination of sixty years of intense competition in the world luxury liners. The still-gleaming telemotor on her bridge, the opening to the crow ‘s nest and the lifeboat davits still poignantly extended outboard tell the tale of the dreadful night she sank. A glimpse of the champagne bottles scattered across the sea floor or the gap that once held the magnificent first-class staircase evokes the stratified society that produced Titanic.

Other images remind us that Titanic was also a human story. A leather suitcase or a pair of shoes marks where a body once lay, and other haunting reminders of the passengers which found themselves helplessly enmeshed in an epic catastrophe.

Titanic The Last Great Images provide us the clearest view of Titanic that we have ever seen, or will ever see. The rapidly deteriorating wreck may soon be gone - and then all we have left is her stories.

Dr Robert Ballard discovered the wreck Titanic on September 1, 1985 - seventy-three years after the great vessel sank. He is one of the world‘s leading marine geologists and has been instrumental in the development of new underwater exploration technology and with the NOAA international treaty to protect the ship from salvagers.