The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map
That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects
of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most
dangerous volcano -- Krakatoa.
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 die 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 Bogotá and
Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were 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 in
Java a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy among fundamentalist
Muslims: one of the first outbreaks of Islamic-inspired killings
anywhere.
Simon Winchester's long experience in the world wandering as well as his
knowledge of history and geology give us an entirely new perspective on
this fascinating and iconic event as he brings it telling back to life.
