The Age of Ships

"The Age of Ships: A time before passenger jets, when ocean liners were 'the greatest of the works of man'".

I especially liked the story Vladimir Yourkevitch, who fled Russia after the Communist takeover and had to take a job in France as a riveter in the Renault factory. The image of an poor immigrant factory worker trying to persuade the chairman of a major French shipyard that his revolutionary new ship hull design would work is something straight out of fiction. That ship would later set a Transatlantic speed record.