RMS Lusitania RMS Lusitania RMS "Lusitania" was a British ocean liner and briefly the world's largest passenger ship. The ship was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat off the southern coast of Ireland. The sinking presaged the United States declaration of war on Germany in 1917. The ship was a holder of the Blue Riband appellation for the fastest Atlantic crossing and was briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of her sister ship . The Cunard Line launched "Lusitania" in 1906, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. She sank on her
The World That Never Was as "intriguing, provocative and written with a novelist’s eye for detail ... an engrossing journey". In "The Guardian", anarchist writer Stuart Christie noted the relevance of the book's themes to contemporary tactics in policing and the Metropolitan Police Service's reluctance to make public files from the 1890s. Francis Wheen, writing in the "Financial Times", wrote that the book was "exhilarating" and questioned whether "the world that never was – one ignoring borders, and divisions of class and religion – [might] resemble the world as it might one day be"; while Peter Preston of "The Observer" described Butterworth's story as one