'Krakatoa': An intriguing look at the explosion<\/p>\n
Caroline Cooper, Contributor, Jakarta<\/p>\n
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\nKrakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883
\nSimon Winchester
\nHarper Collins, 2003
\n416 pp
\n--------------------------------------------------------<\/p>\n
The bare facts associated with Krakatoa's 1883 eruption describe
\na force so powerful that indeed it could be heard across the
\nregion and into India.<\/p>\n
To wit, six cubic miles of rock and ash (nearly the sum total
\nof the island's material) flew up to twenty feet into the air,
\nwaves nearly (and in one case over) one hundred feet high were
\nthrown in every direction radiating out from the site, killing
\n36,000 of the 37,000 people to die with the eruption, and whole
\nfloating islands of pumice washed up on the shores of Zanzibar,
\nthe skeletons of Indonesian people and animals entombed inside.<\/p>\n
Firefighters in the United States raised the alarm a dozen or
\nmore times on fires seen far in the distance, disturbances that
\nwere little more than the spectacular sunsets the eruption was to
\nproduce around the world.<\/p>\n
The startling numbers and facts are, however, just a platform
\nfor Simon Winchester in his latest book, Krakatoa: The Day the
\nWorld Exploded: August 27, 1883. With fluid writing, perhaps not
\ncommonly found among those trained in geology, Winchester steps
\nback from the eruption to illuminate the land and its people
\nbefore ash, lava and saltwater changed everything.<\/p>\n
The book builds unhurriedly to the moment of eruption,
\ndescribing first the strange tussle for Dutch control of spices,
\nand later the inhabitants of Indonesia. Equally central are the
\ntechnological developments that would later facilitate rapid
\nworldwide knowledge of the massive explosion (such that only four
\nhours later, residents of Boston saw the event splashed across
\ntheir front pages and were talking excitedly about places not
\npreviously pronounceable).<\/p>\n
The theory of shifting plate tectonics and the Wallace Line
\n(that imagines a significant split in biodiversity down the
\narchipelago) suggested several decades in advance the enormous
\namount of tension building under the earth's surface in this
\nregion, confirmed by Krakatoa's eruption.<\/p>\n
\"It does play, if unwittingly, a very significant part in the
\nmuch newer theory of plate tectonics, the evolution of the
\nearth,\" he writes.<\/p>\n
While even today it is impossible to predict exactly when a
\nvolcano will erupt, scholarship from this time tells us why.<\/p>\n
Beyond the scientific and technological advancements that
\ndescribe Krakatoa's chaotic awakening, however, are the social
\ncomponents of the story.<\/p>\n
Winchester, unusually, accesses his subject through tireless
\ntrolling through archives and personal letters in Holland (he
\nplaced ads in Amsterdam's local papers, soliciting personal
\ndocuments from ancestors based in Indonesia and was overwhelmed
\nby the response).<\/p>\n
Moreover, his research in Indonesia uncovers a complicated
\nsocial reaction to the eruption, with Muslim scholars such as
\nWest Java's Abdul Karim interpreting the eruption as a heavenly
\nsign of displeasure with Indonesia's position as a colonial
\nsubject.<\/p>\n
Winchester links the explosion of Krakatoa with \"extreme
\nreligious zeal\" and \"weirdly fanatical anger\" in some curious
\nways. In what is his most delicately written passage, Winchester
\ndescribes the shifting social tide against the Dutch and draws an
\narch of rising Muslim militancy through the Revolt of Banten in
\n1888 and on to the present.<\/p>\n
While this assertion, perhaps, deserves closer scrutiny,
\nparticularly in the light of the purely nationalist sentiment
\nthat would shape the emerging nation as much as Islamic belief,
\nWinchester makes a compelling case in linking the destruction of
\nKrakatoa with the fall of the Dutch.<\/p>\n
Krakatoa is a crucial, current look at an event that rocked
\nIndonesia and yet remains largely dormant in the public
\nconsciousness. With wit and grace, Winchester probes the multiple
\ndimensions of the mountain's eruption, leading the reader all
\nover the world in a wild tale replete with geological detail,
\nsocial relevancy and a circus troop from Scotland.<\/p>\n
The book is the creation of Winchester's longstanding interest
\nin Indonesia, dating to the 1970s when he worked as a reporter in
\nthe region and first examined the slopes of Krakatoa. Perhaps the
\nsteady rise of Anak Krakatoa, the lesser volcano to spring from
\nKrakatoa's eruption, will coax him back again to revisit the
\nunending development of the earth's surface -- and the many
\nnarratives people tell to understand it.<\/p>",
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