Holland America Liners 1950-2015

by William H. Miller

Founded in 1873, the Holland America Line provided services carrying passengers and freight between the Netherlands and North America. When the Second World War ended, only nine of Holland America Line’s twentyfive ships had survived and the company set about rebuilding. The pride of HAL’s post-war fleet was SS Rotterdam, completed in 1959, which was one of the first ships on the North Atlantic equipped to offer two-class transatlantic crossings and single-class luxury cruising. However, competition from the airlines meant that in the early 1970s Holland America ended their transatlantic passenger services; in 1973 the company sold its cargo-shipping division.

Now owned by the American cruise line Carnival, Holland America offers roundthe- world voyages and cruises in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and Asia. In this book, renowned ocean liner historian and author William H. Miller takes a look at Holland America Line and its post-war fleet up to 2015.

This is a good book with some lovely photogarphs of some of the old vessels that we remember in the heyday of Transatlantic travel and I would highly recommend it to our readers.