Hello all!
I like what you write Monica and Michael.
As I see it Lilly; the problem lies with the title of the book. Perhaps a better title might have been "Titanic Unzipped" or "What Finally Popped Titanic's Clogs?".
But then, buyers might not have been attracted.
"What really sank the Titanic" suggests the root cause was something other than striking a big chunk of ice. It was not. Nor was it faulty rivets nor instability nor any of the other myriad daft or clairvoyant causes that have been dredged-up since that vessel sank.(pun intended).
No one thing sinks a ship - a series of events does that. A torpedo does not sink a ship - it starts the sinking process!
The Titanic sank because she could no longer stay afloat- full stop. There are probably thousands of people out there who have sufficient knowledge, training and understanding to be able to illustrate and explain the sinking process and the reasons why a ship or floating body might sink - No big deal! old Archimedes had it sussed out when most of our ancestors were still clubbing each other over the head or sitting astride floating tree trunks.
If you read through most Titanic websites, you'll come across the Eureka! brigade- the ones who have made that amazing discovery which all the uneducated idiots in 1912 were not clever enough to understand.
I read of one the other day. It seems that some journalist in Edinburgh has discovered why
Captain Lord of Californian acted in the way he did. According to some well educated psychologist - the poor man was some kind of psychopath and could not help himself. The amazing thing about this conclusion is that it was made on the basis of understanding the workings of the modern mind - without a clear window into the minds of latter day sea faring people or an understanding of their attitudes to each other - to superiors or subordinates.
I suppose you could lump all the 'eureka' moments I have written about into the same modern thought process.
More-or less what you wrote about Monica.
Jim.