Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster, by Steven Biel (Norton, £12 in UK)

The sinking of the unsinkable liner in 1912 was such a blow to Western self-esteem that it spread shock-waves through society and brought the most far-fetched reactions in the most unlikely fields. Centuries earlier, no doubt, it would have been regarded as a Warning from God, and in fact religious cranks drew all sort of morals from it, but they were not the worst. One notable feature of the public and press reactions is the acute class and race consciousness of the epoch - there was outrage at the thought of cultured, monied American gentlemen sacrificing their lives for semi-literate emigrants. People who get nostalgic about the Belle Epoque and its values might study this compilation in order to learn a more realistic attitude.