No wonder the Titanic became not just a metaphor for a whole, calamitous century but a cliche. The story of its maiden and final voyage in 1912 featured a whole pantheon of modern gods that have failed: science and technology, expertise and efficiency, mathematical probability, the worship of the biggest and best. ... In the case of the Titanic, they all added up to one more chapter in man's unending history of hubris.
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