Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded

History

First published: 2003
Print length: 416 pagesHarper Perennial, 2005

Description

Simon Winchester recounts the 1883 destruction of Krakatoa, the volcanic island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. He explains the geological forces that produced the eruption, then follows the immense tsunami that devastated surrounding coasts and killed nearly forty thousand people. The disaster registered far beyond the colonial Dutch East Indies: its explosions were heard in Australia and India, while its waves traveled as far as France. Winchester also considers how communications networks carried reports across the world, making Krakatoa an early global news event. Combining earth science, human history, and the reach of a single natural catastrophe, the book shows how distant societies became witnesses to the same planetary upheaval.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Descriptive · Journalistic

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Atmospheric · Earnest · Reflective · Tense

Structure

Chronological nonfiction

Focus

Ideas · Information · Plot

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

Colonialism and empireCommunityMortalityNature and environmentTechnology and society

About Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester is a British-American journalist and popular historian whose nonfiction moves between biography, science, travel, and the history of ambitious intellectual projects. His experience reporting events including Bloody Sunday and Watergate informs a narrative method that usually begins with people caught in consequential circumstances, then expands to explain the institutions, technologies, or natural forces around them. In The Professor and the Madman, the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary emerges through the unusual collaboration between editor James Murray and the confined contributor W. C. Minor. The Map That Changed the World similarly follows William Smith’s geological discoveries through mines, canals, fossils, professional rivalry, and debtor’s prison. Winchester can also organize a book around catastrophe. Krakatoa proceeds from the mechanics of a volcanic eruption to its tsunamis, colonial setting, human toll, and rapid transmission as global news. His prose is direct and descriptive, with technical explanation broken into episodes and anchored by physical details, individual decisions, and the practical labor behind knowledge.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Harper Perennial
Language: English
ISBN: 9780060838591

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