Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 Book

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.caRead More

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  • Amazon

    Chronicles the destruction of Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883. This book describes how one island and its inhabitants were blasted out of existence and how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm.

  • Foyles

    'Bracingly apocalyptic stuff: atmospheric, chock-full of information and with a constantly escalating sense of pace and tension' Sunday TelegraphSimon Winchester's brilliant chronicle of the destruction of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883 charts the birth of our modern world. He tells the story of the unrecognized genius who beat Darwin to the discovery of evolution; of Samuel Morse, his code and how rubber allowed the world to talk; of Alfred Wegener, the crack-pot German explorer and father of geology. In breathtaking detail he describes how one island and its inhabitants were blasted out of existence and how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm whose echoes are still felt to this day.

  • TheBookPeople

    Simon Winchester's brilliant chronicle of the destruction of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883 charts the birth of our modern world. He tells the story of the unrecognized genius who beat Darwin to the discovery of evolution; of Samuel Morse, his code and how rubber allowed the world to talk; of Alfred Wegener, the crack-pot German explorer and father of geology. In breathtaking detail he describes how one island and its inhabitants were blasted out of existence and how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm whose echoes are still felt to this day.

  • BookDepository

    Krakatoa : Paperback : Penguin Books Ltd : 9780141005171 : 0141005173 : 03 Jun 2004 : Chronicles the destruction of Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883. This book describes how one island and its inhabitants were blasted out of existence and how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm.

  • Penguin

    On 27th August 1883 the most terrifying volcanic eruption occurred on the island of Krakatoa, five miles off the western tip of Java. The island was destroyed and almost 40,000 people were killed.

  • Pickabook

    Simon Winchester, Soun Vannithone (Illus)

  • 0141005173
  • 9780141005171
  • Simon Winchester
  • 3 June 2004
  • Penguin
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 448
  • New Ed
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