G.3. A. T. Tzamtzis,
The Greek Ocean Liners: 1907-1977, Miletos, Athens, undated
This is the classic reference for Greek Ocean Liners in Greece and abroad. It has been cited hundreds of times, praised even more, consulted abundantly... It is of course admirably that Tzamtzis collected all this information that appeared in this book for the first time about 20 years ago. Before this book, very few knew
Moraitis and its importance, remembered
Byron and
Edison, or had any idea where
King Alexander came from. As for
Moreas, Asimina and
Jenny, nobody had a clue. And Tzamtzis presents everything, right in front of our eyes with lots of information!
Then why is it that I am not jumping with joy when I grab this book? Why is it that I double check almost everything mentioned in the book now that the Internet has provided this exceptional luxury to check and double-check everything. Simply because there are some unfortunate editorial errors ...
Starting from a very minor thing first, there is no publishing date in this book, at least not in the Greek version that I have. Nowhere! Why?
And although the publication quality is very good, with printing on heavy paper, one other serious, unfortunate decision has been made!
More than half of the ship photographs presented are "framed" in artificial, old-style, oval shaped borders. This is a bad decision as it takes away from the expanding nature and openness of the maritime pictures. This claustrophobic style of presentation does not allow the reader to appreciate the true magnitude of the ships. As if that were not enough, an unfortunate decision has been made to use the color
sepia excessively.
I think these decisions show very poor editing, although I am wondering if there was another motive in selective this style of photography.. Throughout the book there is a sense that the author is editorializing. The various maritime companies and organizations are presented as careless, money-making conglomerates; they were not! Greek agents are presented as "users" of people, etc; they were not, they were just doing their jobs!
The most disappointing part of the book is the lack of care in proofreading and double checking the references... especially in the ships listing that starts on page 132. A minor complain is the "phonetic" translation of foreign names and words in Greek, often with poor intonation.
Be that as it may, this is the best Greek book on this subject and it will remain "the standard reference" for many years to come.
Συνημμένο Αρχείο 35541