• Krakatoa

  • The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883
  • By: Simon Winchester
  • Narrated by: Simon Winchester
  • Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (1,141 ratings)

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Krakatoa  By  cover art

Krakatoa

By: Simon Winchester
Narrated by: Simon Winchester
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Publisher's summary

The best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano - Krakatoa.

The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa - the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster - was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly 40,000 people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round die planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, DC, went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island's destruction was heard in Australia and India and on islands thousands of miles away. Most significant of all - in view of today's new political climate - the eruption helped to trigger in Java a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy among fundamentalist Muslims: one of the first outbreaks of Islamic-inspired killings anywhere.

Simon Winchester's long experience in the world wandering as well as his knowledge of history and geology give us an entirely new perspective on this fascinating and iconic event as he brings it telling back to life.

©2003 Simon Winchester (P)2003 HarperCollinsPublishers, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Thrilling, comprehensive, literate, meticulously researched and scientifically accurate....It is one of the best books ever written about the history and significance of a natural disaster." (The New York Times Book Review)

"If you're looking for drama, you'll certainly find it here....Winchester manages a dry and ironic delivery, very much in keeping with his writing style. But the main point of interest when the dust has settled is the far-flung ramifications of this eruption upon world events. This is a winner." (AudioFile)

"All readers, science-prone or not, will be delighted by this experience-expanding book." (Booklist)

What listeners say about Krakatoa

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Tremendous

The reader is excellent and the background information the author gives you is incredible. This author gives you details from the basics of geology and why the volcano is there in the first place to the general placement of animals and plants in the archipeligo to first hand accounts of the mountain's demise and the after effects on the population. The accounts are vivid and personal. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in science and how it affects the larger world.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Paid by the word or was the editor on strike?

Being a historian, I dismissed the comments of earlier reviewers, thinking that they just probably didn't like details. But in this case, the criticisms are more than justified. While each detail might be interesting, a good editor needed to tear Winchester away from his notes. The book made me so impatient in places (I was stuck with it on a long fight) that I imagined the author being paid by the word or in love with the sound of his own voice. I only read unabridged books, but an abridged version might have earned Winchester the literary prize worthy of the book's fascinating subject matter.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

On the Fence on This One!

This is the second book I’ve listened to by Simon Winchester, which I was prompted to do by his title The Professor and the Madman. This book seemed to be the most interesting of all his other titles beyond that book, but as good as that book was this book simply does not measure up on any level. This book left me feeling flat and unsated. While I did finish the book in a reasonably swift manner I was doing so more in hopes that it would suddenly, and without warning, grab me and pull me in. It never did.

Krakatoa is overly detailed and it has far too much ancillary filler history about the colonial ambitions of the Europeans, about the location, and the goings on of the people in Batavia; so on and so forth. It reads more like a history text book then what a book like this, by this caliber of writer, should read like. It simply does not focus enough on the event itself in my view. A small glimmer of hope is that Winchester managed to weave enough interesting scientific information into the entire telling that I did learn something and I found those parts particularly good and of value.

Winchester is a very good narrator, but narration alone cannot invest someone in a book. I have mixed emotions about this book because I judge my books based on how much I learn, how many bookmarks I place for later reference, how I feel about listening to the book again, and if the writer can stick to the facts without bias or embellishment. I definitely learned new things from this book, but I placed only two book marks, I’m not sure about listening again, and I'm not sure how biased some of the story is? So, I sit on the fence wondering what I should do because as I write this I honestly cannot say 'get the book', or, 'avoid the book'. I wish Audible allowed updates to reviews so I could give it another go and if I find I am wrong update this! I regret being of no help in your decision!

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Regret my purchase

Book all over the place, never seemed to focus on anything adventurous, or captivating about a volcanic eruption, from any point of view for those who'd been there. instead, we get lessons on evolution, too much talk about scientists, without any application of a human perspective

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating and comprehensive

Half the joy of this book are the digressions...in telling the tale of the Krakatoa eruption, Winchester also gives the history of everything touching on Krakatoa, inlcuding (but not limited to) the spice trade's origins in antiquity, the history of map-making, Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, the origins of the Reuters news service, the birth of the first global communications network in the 19th century (via undersea telegraph lines), the mechanics of vulcanism and plate tectonics, the history of geologic thought and theory, the origins of radical Islam in Indonesia...

I found this book very interesting and enjoyable, and Simon Winchester does an excellent job of narrating his own book. Definitely worth the credit, and I'm now going to see what else Audible has available that's authored by him.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Difficult

This was difficult to listen to. I was certainly interested in the topic and the author had done the homework but the timeline was scattered and tough to follow. The reader made the subject more dry than it should be.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Informative if arguably somewhat dry

From an educational standpoint, the amount of information in this book is phenomenal. No aspect of the eruption is missed, from the volcano's history to its science to its political ramifications. The author's personal experience with geology, volcanoes in general, and this specific volcano clearly shows. The downside of this mass of information is that the book often feels like it is off on a tangent. The writing is eloquent yet often dry, as can be the author's narration. Listening to it in the car, I found myself often losing interest and turning on something else. I love the subject matter, but I just didn't find this book captivating.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

not that great

a lot of backround. kinda drags. don't listen while driving.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Thorough!

If you want a book that discusses everything from plate tectonics, animal migration, 19th Century Dutch trading posts, global wind and climate patterns, and every single eyewitness account of events associated with Krakatoa--no matter how mundane, this is the book!
Overall, while I found some of the scientific linkages interesting, I felt the author was mired too far down in the details and could have gotten to his key points in a much more succinct manner. His narration was fine, for me the only thing that made this book tedious after a while was the excruciating detail.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Krakatoa

The subject matter is great, but this is a story to read, not to be listened to as its author bores you completely with his monotone delivery.

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