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Krakatoa : the day the world exploded, 27 August 1883

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'Bracingly apocalyptic stuff: atmospheric, chock-full of information and with a constantly escalating sense of pace and tension' Sunday TelegraphSimon Winchester's brilliant chronicle of the destruction of the Indonesian island of Krakatoa in 1883 charts the birth of our modern world.

He tells the story of the unrecognized genius who beat Darwin to the discovery of evolution; of Samuel Morse, his code and how rubber allowed the world to talk; of Alfred Wegener, the crack-pot German explorer and father of geology.

In breathtaking detail he describes how one island and its inhabitants were blasted out of existence and how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm whose echoes are still felt to this day.

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Product Details
Penguin Books Ltd
0141005173 / 9780141005171
Paperback / softback
03/06/2004
United Kingdom
English
xiii, 432 p. : ill.
20 cm
general Learn More
Reprint. Originally published: London: Viking, 2003.