A new book fuses imperialism and the development of science and media with the story of one of the world's largest volcanic eruptions, writes Iva Pocock
At 10.02 on the morning of August 27th, 1883, the East Indian island of Krakatoa exploded, literally blowing itself off the map. The loudest sound ever recorded, it was heard thousands of miles away in Australia and India. Ash, rock and volcano were thrown 25 miles into the air causing darkened skies and fiery sunsets around the world and lowering the global temperature by one degree. Thousands of people were burned alive but most of the volcano's victims - 36,417 people - were drowned in the wake of an immense tsunami wave which obliterated surrounding coastal villages. While only the fifth most-explosive eruption recorded, the destruction it caused was disastrous - it killed and injured more people than any other volcanic eruption.
But Simon Winchester says he really didn't want his recently published Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded 27th August 1883 (Viking, €18) to be a "disaster book". Instead, he wanted to use the notorious eruption as "a way of telling lots of other stories". This he does, weaving the history of imperialism, advances in scientific knowledge, development of global media and autobiographical experience into an intriguing tale.
The inspiration came in 1999 when he revisited the western coast of Java, Indonesia. Peering at Anak Krakatoa (the child of Krakatoa, which, thankfully, now acts as a pressure valve, literally letting off earthly steam almost daily) he realised that this volcanic island had grown significantly since he first saw it in 1975 - by 500 feet.
A prolific writer and traveller who was a foreign correspondent for over 20 years, Winchester's instinct for story-telling was stirred. But what really sparked it off, he says, was realising that "the last book about Krakatoa was written in 1965, just two years before the establishment of the theory of plate tectonics". From an authorial point of view this was unfortunate for the author Rupert Furneaux, as he could not include any explanation for the eruption.
In contrast, Winchester's book gives a detailed and fascinating account of the evolution of scientific discoveries which led to the acceptance that the Earth is composed of a series of plates which float on a molten inner-core.
He begins with the mid-19th century writings of Dr Philip Sclater, whose extensive field work revealed a rigid bio-geographical distinction deep within the islands of the so-called East Indies; the jungles to the west of the archipelago hosted birds akin to those found in India, while in the eastern end there were honey-suckers, birds of paradise, cassowaries and emus, all found in Australia. Sclater's work stirred the interest of another Briton, Alfred Russell Wallace, who was living in the East Indies.
For many years known as Darwin's Moon, as he orbited around the more famous scientist, Wallace documented no fewer than 125,660 species in the East Indies (83,000 beetles alone). His realisation that geography was highly influential in the development of biology and that species originated by natural selection were crucial to Darwin's The Origin of Species. But in terms of the theory of plate tectonics, the Wallace line (his only memorial) which divides the Australian fauna (cockatoos, kangaroos) to its east, from Indo-European thrushes, monkeys and deer to its west, was a crucial step. As Winchester explains, Wallace realised "that the reason the two biological regions had so nearly merged, and yet had remained so distinct, was entirely due to geology".
As an Oxford geology graduate, Winchester clearly enjoyed researching the next pieces of the scientific jigsaw, especially when it became clear that a student field trip of his to Greenland in 1965 proved to be one of "the building blocks" in the theory of plate tectonics.
His explanation of how this theory explains Krakatoa's behaviour will delight natural science students and enthusiasts alike - it is certainly more inspiring than many of the dry college textbooks. In essence, the Earth's major plates either diverge, as in the Mid-Atlantic, or converge, as in the Indian plate, pushing up into the Eurasian plate. Many converging plates create subduction zones, where one plate is forced under the other. Some 95 per cent of the world's most violent volcanoes are located along these zones.
In 1980, writes Winchester, scientists realised that the "subduction zone along the Java Trench, where the Indo-Australian Plate is moving under the Indonesian island chain . . . fuelled the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa". According to Winchester, most people he has spoken to in Jakarta, Indonesia, are "rather proud that they are sitting on one of the most geologically-active places in the world". However, this pride is not reflected in the amount of Javanese documentation of the famous eruption. Most of Winchester's source material for describing the eruption was Dutch. In response to an advert in Amsterdam newspapers he "got reams of eyewitness material", as one of the few things which colonials do when they are far away, says Winchester, is write letters home. He used some Javanese material, which he found in Jogjakarta, Indonesia's former capital, and some Sumatran texts. In general, he explains reluctantly, "there's very little and they're not very good". The Europeans, it seems, were better at recording natural phenomena. Even now, says Winchester, there is no book in Bahasa Indonesian about Krakatoa.
At the time of the Earth-shattering event in August 1883, western interests in the East Indies, which had provided massive riches to the colonising Dutch, recorded the event meticulously, and for the first time in history, the west knew within hours.
The new technology, telegraph cables, relayed the story around the world, echoing the eruption's physical effects. In media terms, Winchester reckons it was the first story to be told to the world and was the beginning of the "global village".
Thereafter, recently-established news agencies, such as Reuters, acknowledged the merits of foreign correspondents, laying the ground for future reporters such as Winchester himself.
As a result of the media's new technology, Java and Sumatra became familiar names in the west. However, nowadays, Java has shed its geographical meaning. Winchester recently gave a talk at the global headquarters of Starbuck's in Seattle and the chief-buyer came along because he heard it was about Java - the coffee. "But he bought six copies of the book, so I forgave him," chuckles Winchester.
Although he had been aware of the coincidence in timing of such media developments prior to embarking on the book, it was only when immersed in research that he realised the volcano's eruption coincided with the first fundamentalist Islamic attacks on the Dutch colonial power. A local mullah preached that the eruption was a sign of Allah's discontent with the Javanese, who had allowed themselves to be ruled by the Dutch. This paved the way for today's conflict between Islam and the west, writes Winchester. But his comment that the Bali bombings of 2002 are a "haunting echo" of these 19th-century events is a simplistic comparison.
Nevertheless Krakatoa, born of the energy unleashed by converging continental plates, has provided a convergence of stories, from the human to the geological. For anyone interested in the world's powers, whether political or earthly, this tale is a must, and is guaranteed to stir your curiosity.
Krakatoa: The Day The World
Exploded 27th August 1883 by Simon Winchester is published by Viking (18). See Patrick Skene Catling's review: W12