{"product_id":"9781524754648","title":"Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e#1 New York Times Bestseller\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the \u003ci\u003eLusitania\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the \u003ci\u003eLusitania\u003c\/i\u003e was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGermany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of \u003ci\u003eUnterseeboot\u003c\/i\u003e-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the \u003ci\u003eLusitania\u003c\/i\u003e made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, \u003ci\u003eDead Wake\u003c\/i\u003e brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGripping and important, \u003ci\u003eDead Wake\u003c\/i\u003e captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47034284900592,"sku":"9781524754648","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781524754648_p0.jpg?v=1763739314","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781524754648","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}