Reviews for Lost subs : from the Hunley to the Kursk, the greatest submarines ever lost - and found

School Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Adult/High School-Beginning with a history of the first attempts at submarine invention, this book provides a chronological look at some of the best-known submarines and the men responsible for the major innovations. The first one discussed, the CSS (Confederate States Ship) H. L. Hunley, is revealed as a marvel of engineering for its time. Dunmore pieces together information from salvage work and historical documentation to present a solution to the mystery of why it sank. In this same manner, each chapter describes the submarines of a specific time period and technological level, as well as their fate. Few are resurrected from the icy depths, but those that are bear witness to the efforts and marvels of technology, engineering, and creative thinking. Paralleling the tragic accidents are the advances that made submarines safer, easier to escape from, and engineered to allow for more sailors to survive until surface help arrives. While these vessels are far safer now than ever before, accidents still cause massive loss of life, as exemplified by the last submarine discussed in the book, the mighty Russian Kursk. Dunmore's compelling work is straightforward and easy to read. Abundant illustrations, including photographs, reproductions, and other visuals, keep the interest high and the pages turning.-Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


Publishers Weekly
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Every few years, perhaps thanks to movies like The Hunt for Red October or Titanic, there's a groundswell of interest in bottom-of-the-ocean booty. But year in and year out, there are those who find the subject compelling regardless, those for whom ploughing through stories of the ocean's ferocity and man's folly is treasure enough. This illustrated history is for them. "From poor, primitive Hunley [a Confederate sub that was "essentially an overgrown boiler"] to the atomic submarine Kursk," Dunmore (In Great Waters) shares tales of disasters, recoveries and subsequent investigations. Full of archival photos, illustrations, diagrams and lushly colored paintings, all packed around nautical stories of warfare and bad luck, this volume traces a brief history of submarining and some of its more memorable losses. Written in simple yet propulsive prose, the volume paints vivid characters caught in treacherous, suffocating circumstances, and never skimps on the details of the technology. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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