Collection Name: Drachen Foundation Collection
Collection Number: 2163
Post Type: Book
This item was entered by Matthew Sutton. They assume full responsibility for all content.
Artist or Author: Simon Winchester
Creation Year: 2003
Length: 0.00
Height: 0.00
Width: 0.00
Summay:
ISBN: 0-06-621285-5 Language: English Description: 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 cata-
clysmic disaster-was followed by an immense tsunami that
killed nearly forty thousand people. Beyond the purely
physical horrors of an went that has only very recently been
property 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 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 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 tellingly back to life.
416 pages
Reference to kites on pg. 71 about Alfred Wegener and meterological tests.
Geographic: Indonesia
Significance: Historical
Images: (Click to open in viewer.)