Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Jan. 26, 2005

"Civilization exists by geological consent"

It was early in December last year that I received a call from a friend in Oregon. During our conversation she mentioned a book she had just read and urged me to get it. The title was Krakatoa published in 2003. Author Simon Winchester tells the story of the historic volcanic eruption of Krakatoa which is accepted as the greatest explosion thus far in recorded history. The book cover describes it as the day the world exploded: August 27,1883.

Thirteen percent of the Earth's surface vibrated from that explosion. It was recorded that the sound was heard 2,968 miles away. The shock wave traveled around the world seven times.

Fifteen days following the explosion tsunami waves were detected in the English Channel. U.S. historian Will Durant might have had Krakatoa in mind when he wrote, "Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without consent."

I was well into the book when on Dec. 26, 2004 word came that in that same area of the Indian Ocean where Krakatoa had disappeared the tectonic plates had moved again resulting in a mighty earthquake followed by a tsunami. A USA Today story described it as "The deadliest tsunami in more than a century, since the giant waves that followed the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa killed 36,000 Indonesians in 1883."

In that smaller and simpler world of a hundred years ago that number of fatalities was as shocking as the far greater numbers from the 2004 disaster set as of January 17 at over 162,000.

Author Winchester is a geologist but he is also an excellent writer and a master storyteller. He weaves so many little known facts throughout the book. The Kirkus Reviews said of the book, "Dotting his narrative with learned asides and digressions, Winchester carefully builds a dramatic tale that begins with a few rumblings and ends with the end of the world as the Spice Islanders knew it."

The Portuguese, though outsiders, had maintained a stranglehold on the sought after aromatic tropical spices since the 1500s. As the Dutch and English produced better ships they went looking for especially pepper in the Indies. Eventually the Dutch ousted the Portuguese and they were the outside rulers from 1602 to 1799.

In an early chapter of the book we are warned that the Christian Dutch had an arrogance about them that was not easily accepted by the sultans who practiced the Islamic belief. Five weeks after the 1883 eruption, while the dead were still being buried, the tension which had been building for such a long time resulted in the stabbing of a Dutch man.

This violence disturbed the Dutch citizens because they had organized relief operations and Dutch money was flowing in to rebuild roads and buildings. But the violence grew and in 1888 the Banten Peasant's Revolt marked a turning point in the colonial history of that part of the world and eventually led to an independent Indonesia in 1949.

Between 1883 and 1888 there was a great religious movement in the Indies when Islam and local politics became entwined. Winchester writes, "This was a political and religious consequence of disaster that was to have the most profound and longest-lasting fallout, for the Indies, for Europe, and beyond."

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.