• Author: Simon Winchester
• ISBN: 978-0-06-621285-2

The Day The World Exploded August 27, 1883

Krakatoa was an incredibly violent volcanic explosion that literally and figuratively sent shock-waves around the world on August 27, 1883. In his book on the subject author Simon Winchester contends that the reverberations of the eruption have echoed all the way to the dawn of the 21st century in ways that are not initially apparent when opening up his book. Winchester has that remarkable gift of making history and science come alive as he vividly illustrates the world of that fateful day and how our understanding has grown and changed in the 100 plus years since the cataclysmic event. He does this by illuminating the history of the area around Krakatoa both on the surface and beneath it. At the time of the eruption, Krakatoa was an island off the west coast of Java in the Sunda Strait, a waterway separating Java from Sumatra, both of which are part of the modern nation of Indonesia, but at the time were at the heart of the Dutch colonial empire. Winchester traces the history of how the tiny Netherlands came to have a vast commercial and then colonial empire that ruled the East Indies for 350 years. Much of the devastation from the explosion of Krakatoa occurred when powerful tsunami (massive waves) sent ocean waters slamming into the coasts of Java and Sumatra killing over 36,000 people. Several factors caused the event to resonate half way around the world in the capitols of Europe: telegraph carried the news of the terrible tragedy around the world; measuring devices as far as Europe recorded air and water waves that clearly originated from the eruption; the tons of debris expelled into the atmosphere caused temperatures to drop worldwide while the dust particles caused fire colored sunsets that so frightened people that editorials had to be written explaining the cause was a volcano on the other side of the earth. The story beneath the surface is just as remarkable as there was very little understanding of the forces that caused the eruption in 1883. Incredibly it is only in the last 40 years that the scientific community has come to agree upon and comprehend the impact on volcanoes of the forces of plate tectonics and continental drift. Writing a book about history or science much less both for mass consumption is a tricky balancing act and with Krakatoa Simon Winchester pulls it off winningly.