Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
One of the (many) things that troubled me about the book was its sub-title: "A World War One Story of Treachery, Tragedy and Extraordinary Heroism".
Most of that is right ... but where is the treachery? That's a pretty strong word to use without good cause. While people initially and understandably thought that Germans might have been to blame, Bacon doesn't pursue this, so unless he thinks the members of the crew of the Mont Blanc were displaying treachery (which they were not, given that it means a deliberate act of betrayal or sabotage), such a dramatic word is completely inappropriate. It's one of the reasons I referred earlier to the book as tabloid journalism.
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Much as I find Bacon's methods reprehensible, he might not have been responsible for the title, which could have been cooked up by the marketing folks at HarperCollins. The whole endeavor screams marketing, or as you rightly call it, tabloid journalism. Pick a sexy event, aka a human tragedy, whose centenary is coming up, cobble together a book based on others' research, tilt it toward the American market with specious historical claims, slap a title on it with hot-button words and Bob's your uncle! Start planning the publicity tour.