Review Of Dead Wake: The Last Crossing Of The Lusitania By Erik Larson

Erik Larson’s, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing Of The Lusitania, is one of many of the most thrilling series of events that he ever writes about. Erik Larson was very well known and was a best selling author of books such as In the This book is filled with the history and the causes and effects of the sinking of the Lusitania and many of the events leading up to World War I. He definitely took a strong subject to write about, especially since this was during the height of the Progressive Era. Erik Larson describes the people on the boat feeling carefree and excited about their trip across the Atlantic Ocean on one of the greatest liners of the Era. The Lusitania was a British liner that was meant as a high class luxury which was almost eight hundred

This ship was able to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an unheard of five days. There was a greater than usual amount of young children and babies on gourd for this trip. The destination of this voyage was set for the town of Liverpool, England. The boat departed on the first day of May in 1915 out of the large American city, New York.

During this time, the Great War, or nowadays we refer to World War I, has begun. The country of Germany was fighting against the countries of Britain and France. A large factor in this fighting was the use of the Navy and the fighting at the sea. Germany was unsuccessful at first, but then they established their own submarines. This submarines were known as “Undersea boats” or “Unterseeboots”, or “U-boats” for short. Unfortunately, the captain of this liner, Captain William Thomas Turner, knew that Germany had the seas around Britain to be used for war. Because of this, he could have been feeling uneasy about this mighty adventure. In fact, Germany even warned America that there could be an attack for any ship that entered their

This was a very heart breaking situation and think made a wound on the United States. Many Americans were hurt and responded in anger towards the Germans. But Germany continued the practice of sinking ships through their submarines and finally the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson needed to step in and ask if Germany would stop with the certain behavior of the submarines. A white house butler even stated on Wilson’s mood that “Germany is going to get Hell in the address to Congress. I never knew him to be more peevish. He’s out of sorts, doesn’t feel well, and has a headache.” (p. 486) Ironically, when the presidential election came in order for Wilson to try to gain his second term into office, he was really forcing the point that he had kept the United States neutral in the war and kept us away throughout all this time, but soon after, he decided to ask Congress for a declaration of war against Germany because of Germany’s uncalled for submarine behavior. “The American people are at last ready to make war on Germany, thank God.” (p.