Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded August 27, 1883

Winchester, Simon

ISBN 10: 0060743840 ISBN 13: 9780060743840

Publisher: Harperaudio, 2004

Synopsis

The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa -- the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster -- was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round the planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogota and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island's destruction was heard in Australia and India and on islands thousands of miles away. Most significant of all -- in view of today's new political climate -- the eruption helped to trigger a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy by fundamentalist Muslims in Java: one of the first outbreaks of Islamic killings anywhere.

Simon Winchester's long experience in world wandering, as well as his knowledge of history and geology, gives us an entirely new perspective on this fascinating and iconic event as he brings it tellingly back to life.

About this title

Review

In Krakatoa Simon Winchester, author of The Map That Changed the World and The Professor and the Madman, focuses his considerable research powers on one of the most cataclysmic events of modern history: the volcanic eruption, in 1883, of the South East Asian island of Krakatoa, which resulted in the deaths of 36,000 people and sent shock-waves around the world. But what at the time was a mysterious, almost supernatural phenomenon has become, under the precepts of the contemporary science of plate tectonics, explicable if no less tragic.

Winchester veers between eyewitness accounts by survivors and the limited scientific measurements of the time in an attempt to describe the indescribable. The event "is still said to be the most violent explosion ever recorded and experienced by modern man", he writes. "Six cubic miles of rock had been blasted out of existence, had been turned into pumice and ash and uncountable billions of particles of dust." Yet words and numbers can barely hint at the scale of the calamity, which resulted in tsunamis that washed whole villages into the ocean and forever changed the very topography of the area.

The author also explores the social and cultural topography, noting that "Orthodox Islam, its revival in part triggered by tragic events such as the great cataclysm, was totally transformed in Java during the nineteenth century, with fundamentalism, militancy and profound hostility to non-Muslims its watchwords". At times Winchester seems to overstate his case, and the link he finds between Krakatoa and the rise of anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world isn't especially convincing. But by weaving together the disaster with science, communications, politics, religion and economics, he has come up with a comprehensive and often fascinating glimpse into the way the world, and our perception of it, can change in an instant. --Shawn Conner, Amazon.ca

Review

"Krakatoa is a pleasure from beginning to end." -- Boston Sunday Globe

"A rattling good read." -- Boston Sunday Globe

"A good read." -- Washington Post Book World

A good read. --Washington Post Book World

A rattling good read. --Boston Sunday Globe

"Winchester's exceptional attention to detail never falters."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Krakatoa is a pleasure from beginning to end."--Boston Sunday Globe

"Winchester scores." (byline Baltimore Sun, printed in Pittsburg Post-Gazette)--Baltimore Sun

"Winchester...is noted for his ability to turn scholarly history into engrossing narrative."--Chicago Sun-Times

"A real-life story bigger than any Hollywood blockbuster."--Entertainment Weekly

Edition details

• Publisher: Harperaudio
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0060743840
• ISBN 13: 9780060743840
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English