Dead Wake by Erik Larson

This is a detailed look at the last ocean crossing of the Lusitania, jockeying between the perspective of the ship's captain, the U-boat commander that ultimately sunk the ship, and then the perspective of the US government and the president, Woodrow Wilson. This author is a master storyteller, who after having amassed the history, weaves it all together into a tale that is both easy to follow and to understand the significance. Here is the gist of it. On 7 May 1915 the Cunard liner Lusitania, the fastest ship of its day, steaming from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed by a German submarine 12 miles off the coast of southern Ireland, not far from Cobh. It sank in 18 minutes: 1,198 passengers and crew, including three German stowaways and 123 Americans, perished. Only six of 22 lifeboats were launched. Many passengers drowned because they donned their life-jackets incorrectly and could not keep their heads bobbing above water. There were 764 survivors. This unprecedented attack on civilians caused a storm of indignation, particularly in the US, which expected its citizens to be immune from international violence. Putin is by no means the first and he won't be the last leader to target civilians in the name of advancing a war cause. The Germans targeted any ocean going vessel, and in this case, that practice was one of the dominoes that fell and led to America's reluctant involvement in WWI.