Steven Ujifusa, A Man and His Ship: America’s Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the S.S. United States. I should have gotten around to reading this book earlier, since the author is the son of Grant Ujifusa, who came up with the idea of The Almanac of American Politics and recruited me as a co-author more than 40 years ago. For that I remain eternally grateful, and perhaps for that reason I hesitated before picking up A Man and His Ship. If so, it’s a case of delayed gratification, for this is an absolutely splendid book in every way.

It’s the story of William Francis Gibbs (1886-1967), the naval architect who designed many ships, from North Atlantic ocean liners to the World War II Liberty ship transports, to cruise ships. Steven Ujifusa writes clearly and gracefully and he seems to have total command of the technical terms; he does a fine job of bringing the elusive Gibbs to life; and in the process of telling his story presents a fascinating picture of high finance centered in New York in the interwar and postwar years. And you even get a detailed description, together with illustrations, of the interior decoration of United States and other ocean liners.