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This book is quite slow which lost me. I feel it focused far too much on island horticulture and populace. I purchased the book specifically for the eruption and post-eruption affects, and because I didn't receive that information early enough in the book, I chose to not finish it.
The book begins slowly building up to the awesome day of August 1883 when Krakatoa erupted and completelly disappeared from earth. Tho impatient to reach the actual event, I became engrossed in Indonesian history and the people of this region around the Islands of Krakatoa, their lives, occupations and pleasures before the unfolding disaster.Description of the volcano explosion and tsunami that followed was awesome reading, with stories of those who survived, official documents and reports from places effected thousands of miles away.Winchester, who is a geologist by training, explains why Krakatoa happened. His scientific explanation is lucid, fascinating reading about the wonders of this planet and, like the rest of the book, an all engrossing study and understanding of the largest explosion in the history of our earth.
Those aside, the book has a good story and is very informative. Karakatoa is a well written and clearly well researched book. The first few chapters are very long, overly descriptive and not altogether important to the story. It covers some history, science and the societal effects of the volcanic explosion so there is something for every reader. This is not a quick book - it reads like a heavy history book.
While leading up to the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa, Simon Winchester goes to great lengths describing the cultural and economic history of Sumatra and Java and the geology of plate tectonics and the volcanic activity of the Pacific Rim. This is typical throughout the book.What's the matter with this publisher. Krakatoa is not depicted.
The public-domain portraits, drawings, and sketches complement the text nicely, but the maps are quite another matter. The third map is of three islands in the Krakatoa group, but, because the topography of Krakatoa changed with each subsequent eruption, the outline doesn't match any of the islands on the previous map. I found Winchester's accounts well-written and engaging but, as several reviewers have succinctly noted, those interested in a more direct account of the 1883 eruption should look elsewhere.While I enjoyed the author's narrative, the publisher's niggardly approach to illustrating the work has detracted significantly from its value.
The second map shows Java and Sumatra and several islands between them; Krakatoa is one of them but, unlike some of the islands, is unlabeled. Few of them appear to apply directly to the written text and the labels often don't correspond to events described or even those on other maps. The book's first map, for example, shows the land masses of Southeast Asia with China, Burma, Laos, Sumatra, Java, Australia, and the Philippines labeled.
The third map is labeled, but some of the archaic spellings do not correspond to those in Winchester's text. Would it really cost that much to draw maps that correlate with Winchester's text and with each other -- or at least add meaningful labels to the maps they find on the shelf.Winchester has written an outstanding history, but some readers may find that a good desk atlas or printouts from Wikipedia or Google Earth will enhance their enjoyment of it.
This was a new idea.Islands rose and disappeared in the aftermath. Simon Winchester is that rare person. A disciple of Darwin, Wallace studied the islands extensively and finally drew an imaginary line separating the two distinct types of life occupying the islands. The island continued sending out streams of hot smoke and raining pumice on everything in the vicinity off and on until the day of doom, August 27, when Krakatoa spewed out so much material it reduced itself, formerly a good-sized island with three volcanic peaks, to a small piece of land with half of one peak left. People living in areas that did not suffer any death and destruction began to realize that the earth is a small place and what happens in one corner can affect the entire planet. You learn how the Dutch kicked out the Portuguese and claimed these islands of Java, Sumatra, and other islands in the archipelago. You get a history lesson about the Dutch East Indies and a city called Batavia (now Jakarta, capital of Indonesia).
You learn that black pepper grows on these islands and about the trading routes that were established to bring this and other spices back to Europe. Here is a history of the exploration of these islands, including the observations of one Alfred Russel Wallace, who noted the flora and fauna were different on different parts of this island zone. It is rare that someone combines scientific expertise with great writing talent that takes in, not only the scientific part of a topic, but also the human part. He takes you up to the first warning signs from Krakatoa in May of 1883, when rumbles and smoke and ash fall covered a great area around the Sunda Straits, but no one saw that the mountain was not finished roaring. One enterprising boat owner actually took tourists to the island to see where all the belching had come from. It had blown itself to bits.The Sunda Straits, the water passageway between Java and Sumatra, was completely changed, and the entire earth enjoyed beautiful sunsets for years afterwards. The story of life returning to the new island is a wonderful lesson of "life finds a way." First spiders and insects, then grasses and plants, then ground-nesting birds, then marine animals and on and on until you have a complete stable ecosystem that will last until the next time Krakatoa announces its need to relieve pressure and teaches us these lessons all over again.I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as will anyone who wants to know more about the world we live in and how it got that way. If you do an internet search, you can find pictures of this young island.
In the pages of this absorbing tale, you learn the geology behind the explosive eruption of the volcanic island Krakatoa in 1883, an event so loud it was heard 3000 miles away, so disastrous that the tsumanis it spawned swept away villages, people, and ships that happened to be in the Sunda Straits at the time.But you get so much more than just fascinating information about the earth's geology and the formation and fate of an island located over a subduction zone. It wasn't until 1928 that an island rose from the water where the main part of Krakatoa had been. This became known as "The Wallace Line." Years later, with the doctrine of plate tectonics, the reasons for this distinction became known. The crashing together of dissimilar plates was the reason for the many volcanoes in the region and the reason there were different kinds of animals and plants on either side of the Wallace Line.The author takes you inside the colonial city of Batavia and introduces you to some of its residents. There were four different risings and erodings back under the waves until a piece of land remained and began a steady growth and became "Anak Krakatoa" (Son of Krakatoa).
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