The Titanic and the Californian

The collision of the Titanic with an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic in 1912 was one of the great traumatic experiences of the twentieth century.

Ever since that night people and historians have gone back over the history of those hours, wondering what could have been done to avoid the catastrophe and who, if anybody, was to blame for it.

Peter Padfield – historian and master mariner – looks with a sailor’s eye upon the whole Titanic disaster. In particular, his book disproves the widely held theory, upheld by two Courts of Inquiry, that the Leyland liner Californian was within sight of the Titanic when she sank, and the Californian’s inaction in the face of the rockets which she saw, allegedly from the sinking liner, doomed over 1,500 to die by cold and drowning.


Praise for The Titanic and the Californian:
‘Fresh and valuable… Mr Padfield knows what he is writing about… with a knowledge and devotion displayed by no previous writer’ - Times Literary Supplement

‘It is a pity that Captain Lord did not live to read this splendid vindication… Padfield’s magnificent analysis’ - New Zealand Herald

‘A dramatic and excellently told story’ - The Book Society

Peter Padfield is a historian, journalist and author who has written extensively on naval and other military history. He lives in Suffolk.