<DIV>This passionate yet balanced narrative explores every facet of the <I>Titanic</I>'s history, including her spectacular conception in an Irish shipyard and the ambitious modern-day attempts to salvage her. The familiar story of the RMS <I>Titanic</I>&#8212;from her encounter with an iceberg to her demise some three hours later, taking with her more than fifteen hundred people&#8212;still looms large in the popular imagination, and in Daniel Butler's as well. He studied the <I>Titanic</I>'s history for thirty years, intensively compiling facts about the disaster and the players involved (from Captain Smith and his crew to the ill-fated third-class passengers). He even made the startling discovery of a nearby ship that ignored the <I>Titanic</I>'s distress call because the shipmates were afraid to awaken their captain. Drawn from primary sources and period accounts, this new narrative puts the disaster into historical context and serves as an essential resource for scholars of <I>Titanic</I> lore.</Div>