Rating: 
Summary: A fabulous book by a great writer
Review: Simon Winchester is a fabulous writer and this new book is fully worthy of him. He is both accurate and incredibly easy to read all at the same time - the perfect combination for those of us who want a serious book that is also fun to read. Buy it and enjoy! Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003)
Rating: 
Summary: Hesitate before buying book
Review: If you are thinking of buying this book, take a look at the maps on the first few pages and see if you can figure out where Krakatoa is. You won't be able to. The maps are a riddle as is the book. The author is a smart man who has written a very poor book.
Rating:
Summary: This folks is what education is all about!
Review: Some years ago, I happened upon a quirky book by Simon Winchester on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (The Professor and the Madman). I fully expected a tedious read, but to my surprise (and others since it was a bestseller) I could hardly put the book down. Winchester, though, is a trained geologist and in the Krakatoa book, the author displays his academic intellect, but his genuine love of the field. A lesser author would probably just focus on the more dramatic aspects of the catastrophe. Winchester, though, takes us from the very beginning (of time) to explain not only the volcanic explosion, but WHY it occurred. I was shocked to learn that only recently did the scientific community understand or fully accept the concept of shifting Teutonic plates, which is the reason for the eruption. The author goes far beyond this discussion and I especially enjoyed reading of how the scientists used logical reasoning to prove and disprove the various possibilities earth movements. I can't say that I can hold onto all the information that is contained in this book, but I am sure that if geology courses were this interesting, fewer geology departments would be closed today in many of our universities. Don't get me wrong, it is not all academics. The author provides wonderful anecdotes to personalize the stories, including his participation in a geological expedition to Greenland that played an important part in understanding the Krakatoa eruption. Finally, the author makes fine effort to emphasize the scope of the tragedy and the possible continuing cultural/political aftershocks in that region of the world.
Rating: 
Summary: From capitalism to catastrophe
Review: Simon Winchester can never be faulted for narrow outlook. In this book his view is global in extent and delves into deep time. Using one of the most cataclysmic events of modern times as a focus, he explains mysterious processes in the Earth, global communications and the roots of capitalism. Well researched and written in his usual animated style, Winchester relates a stirring and informative account. Richly illustrated with maps, photos and diagrams, this book encompasses much in minimal space. He opens with a tribute to a nearly forgotten child's book, W.P. du Bois' "The Twenty-one Balloons". This fantasy story symbolises the persistence of the memory we retain of the 1883 volcanic destruction of Krakatoa. Winchester examines the many facets that kept that memory active - the mystique of volcanoes, the vivid sunsets, the rise of a "global village" concept. Like it or not, the "global village" would never have emerged without the rise of modern imperialist powers. Pepper is a starting point, and Winchester explains how the Dutch became masters of the Spice Islands. In no small measure it was because the Dutch East-India Company [VOC] was flexibly structured - wielding immense local power distant from its headquarters. The joint-stock company became the foundation for corporations which are today straddling the globe and have exceeded governments in size, income and power. Winchester shows how the needs of business led to the development of the global telegraph network. While Krakatoa was building internal pressures for its destructive finale, telegraph cables were being laid on the sea beds. These were designed to link business interests. However, the links imparted many forms of news. Krakatoa's eruption became the first natural event gaining global attention. The subsequent investigations resulted in further research ultimately culminating in today's knowledge of continental drift. The impact on weather spurred better understanding of climatic mechanisms. This account is rich in detail and descriptively vivid. The author weaves people, events and environment together seamlessly. You are intimately placed with the participants in the face of the catastrophe as well as the more prosaic daily circumstances. With so many facets brought to play around the eruption, it's difficult to impart them all here. Winchester's personal observations play no small part in the narrative. His account of the concept of plate tectonics is given with all the awe derived from newly acquired knowledge. While the book is a valuable overview of many fields, Winchester has a tendency to let certain "causes" override his narrative. He, along with other historians, takes up the reputation of Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection - "Darwinism". Wallace's reputation needs refurbishing, but not at the cost of Darwin's. Winchester argues that Darwin and Wallace derived their ideas simultaneously. This is simply false, as Darwin had been formulating his presentation for two decades. Winchester ignores Dutch Calvinism while he builds a case for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. The omission is inexcusable. The Dutch Protestants didn't make an issue of religion in their colonial enterprises [unlike the Spanish], leaving Islam to flourish. He offers no analysis of the religious aspects, instead focussing on business and administrative aspects of Dutch imperialism. He explains his rationale by stating the rise of Islamic militant fundamentalism took place shortly after the eruption "is one of those historical coincidences too attractive to ignore". Perhaps he should have left this issue to another book and done a more complete job. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating: 
Summary: The natives are restless
Review: The book equals the tedious fieldwork that the author describes himself pursuing in Greenland - focused on drilling, collecting of samples, waiting months for the results, and finally collecting a reward of small trivia that helps to build some overarching vision of the physical universe. Most people will find themselves challenged in the many sections that read like a long forgotten radio play set in a society ball, with attendant characters carrying on long passages of exposition detailing matters of consequence only to themselves. It reads more for an audience of that same era about which he is writing, perhaps an undesirable echo of the author having read so many contemporary accounts about the incident. Where Winchester succeeds is in the topic of geology, and this is undoubtedly due to his background on the subject. His description of the on-going geological formation of the earth and the history of our understanding of that science were the highlight of the long journey. Unfortunately, even in this area he seems to falter in unending detail, a sort of Trivial Pursuit (Geological Edition), which seem to have no point other than to prove that the author has encyclopedic knowledge. In an attempt to include some sort of compelling narrative, he produces the central human conflict of the restless natives versus the colonials, but this does not hold up to scrutiny. The biggest displacement of the Dutch presence in Java, both physically and otherwise, occurred because of the Japanese invasion in World War II, and nothing else before that moment even came close to challenging Dutch rule. The idea that the Bantam Peasant's Revolt would have some significant impact and that it would culimate some 60 years later is dulled by the numerous disturbances that preceded it, in Aceh and elsewhere. More worrisome is that among all these details, the author appears to slip at times. Of particular interest are statements such as the Javanese and Malay languages being "both very similar, to be sure" (p.155) and describing Suharto's rise to power "in an American-backed coup d'etat, which led to the corruption and civil strife that disfigure Indonesia still" (p.142). In the former, this statement is equal to saying that English and Sumerian are very similar. In the latter, the author is largely presuming assistance of the coup by the American government (unfounded), that the coup was driven by Suharto (unfounded), and the idea that things have changed much for the worse since the Sukarno era (easily refutable). Why any of this matters is that, as he noted about the scholar Ranggawarsita from Solo who had meandered from the factual in his writing, that it is the "inevitable fate of any writer of nonfiction who makes anything up: He finds that readers call into question everything he writes" (p.125). While I am not saying that Winchester made anything up, it caused me to question the basis for his research and whether he was correct or not in other statements. While the writing appears thoroughly researched, a referenced bibliography would have been more convenient for factual confirmation. Taken as a whole, the book sounds as if a simple question was put to the author, to which an earnest and unnecessarily long answer, unless that necessity was something other than clarity alone - perhaps to thicken up an otherwise thin subject. I did not enjoy "The Professor and The Madman" either, but to that book's credit, it was over quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Surf's up, Dude!
Review: KRAKATOA is an appealing and reader-friendly piece of history and science. The populist approach by author Simon Winchester reminds me of Carl Sagan. It isn't until page 233 of this 390-page hardback that the narrative arrives at 10:02 AM on August 27, 1883, when the volcanic island of Krakatoa, situated in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra, blew up. The explosion was heard 2,968 miles away - roughly the distance between Philadelphia and San Francisco, ejected enough dust into the upper atmosphere to color sunsets worldwide for the next three years, and generated waves strong enough to register on tide gauges on England's south coast. Of the Earth's volcanic blasts known to history, this was the fifth largest. In the preceding 232 pages, Winchester skims a fascinating array of relevant subjects that should appeal to any reader of eclectic interests: the evolution of the Dutch East India Company and its spice trade, Darwinism, the Wallace Line, continental drift, convection currents inside the Earth's mantle, plate tectonics, paleomagnetism, subduction zones, the development of underwater telegraph cables, evidence for Krakatoan eruptions in earlier centuries, and the observed paroxysms of the doomed island in the months, days, and hours before the final cataclysm. While many of the subjects may sound dry, the author's treatment of them isn't. 10:02 AM on August 27 went by in an instant. The pages following describe the series of ocean waves, the last over 100 feet high by the time it hit nearby coasts, that killed all but 1,000 of the 36,000+ who died in the calamity. After the waters subside and the ashes settle, Winchester closes with a discussion of the art inspired by years of glorious, dust-mediated, sunsets. And the re-emergence of a new volcanic island, Anak Krakatoa, on the site of the old, including the establishment of plant, insect and animal life on its barren, steaming surface. The author bases his story on a multitude of scientific and historical sources, many of which involve eyewitness accounts of events. These, plus Winchester's dry humor, make for an engaging read. There's one chapter, however, which the book's editor should've advised tossing, i.e. the one unconvincingly postulating that the 1883 disaster sparked the revolt of the Islamic native population against their Christian Dutch overlords, which resulted in the latter being sent packing from Indonesia in 1949. Hmm. Perhaps it was just because the Dutch colonial administration wasn't warm and cuddly. You think? Also, though the volume is interspersed with useful photos and drawings, Winchester's own visit to Ana Krakatoa is visually unrepresented - a sorry lapse. Ana Krakatoa translates as "Son of Krakatoa". The history of the island suggests it may also mean, "I'm back, and you'll be sorry!" Surfers at some future time may have another opportunity to catch a Monster Wave.
Rating:
Summary: For Those Curious Few
Review: If you are curious about the world you live in, about how the earth works, about history, about ANYTHING, this book will grab you and not let go. Mr. Winchester again creates a compelling story out of a very simple premise, the destruction of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa. Spiraling out of that are descriptions of how the earth moves (and how Homo Sapiens finally began to understand it), colonialism in SE Asia, laying of intercontinental telegraph lines, etc, etc. Mr. Winchester doesn't let an opportunity go by when he can give the reader just that little bit more knowledge on a particular theme (his various footnotes are EXTREMELY entertaining and VERY informative). For those who didn't get it, how very unfortunate. His kitchen-sink take on Krakatoa will continue to fascinate long after one finishes reading and will give you great conversation pieces at cocktail parties.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I've read Winchester's other books with fascination, but this one falls flat. Considering the richness of the available material on the Krakatoa event, I expected much better from him. But even when he appeared on C-Span to promote this book, he didn't come across as particularly knowledgeable. In fact, Winchester seems to have drawn most of his substantive material from a single comprehensive study the Smithsonian Institution conducted and published in 1983, on the centennial of the historic eruption. Then, to flesh it out into a complete book, he adds a lot of historical material that never ties in with any unifying theme (except for his grasping at straws in pulling in Islam in the last few chapters). Most disappointing is the fact that there are no characters, let alone any characters that come alive. All of the deaths are merely dessicated statistics. As a reader, why was I to care? Had it not been for the writer's well-earned prior reputation, I would have tossed this book aside long before finishing it. Winchester knows how to do much better than this; it's unclear why he didn't bother to do so. A much better nonfiction account of a historic volcanic disaster is Zebrowski's recent "The Last Days of St. Pierre," which, apparently because it was published by a university press, never received much promotion or attention.
Rating:
Summary: Beware of complacency-KABOOM!
Review: This is an eminently readable account of the Krakatoa Explosion,
heard over 5,000 miles away! Excellent, reader-friendly geological background is given, as well as riveting eye-witness
accounts, and some post-Explosion religious strife that is eerily reminiscent of today. Makes one very glad that one is living today, when we hopefully,
know more about our active earth. Very spooky reading in a way, especially as it tells of the ter-
rifying effects of the Explosion, one of the first to be wit-
nessed by modern people, which also in turn aided in the study
of the new science of volcanology.
Rating:
Summary: False Marketing
Review: I was pretty upset when I read this book--the marketing for it is very very misleading. Here's the honest marketing: It goes on and on about the geography and Dutch colonization of Indonesia for pages and pages. And I mean on and on. Then info about the culture and people of the island. Then you finally get to the volcano erupting--but it's a very short description of the event--and very very disappointing, especially after having slogged through Dutch colonization 101 for pages on end. It's not a vivid, detailed, fiery reconstruction--it's much more bland than that. Like I said, very misleading marketing. I read Isaac's Storm by Eric Larson and thought this would be even better. Krakatoa doesn't even come close to being as good as Isaac's Storm--buy that book instead.
|
