Read Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded Page 37


  Blue, Gregory, Colonialism and the Modern World: Selected Studies (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 2002)

  Blussé, Leonard, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (Dordrecht, Foris Publications, 1988)

  Bruce, Victoria, No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras and Nevado del Ruiz (New York, HarperCollins, 2001)

  Cardini, Franco, Europe and Islam (Oxford, Blackwell, 2001)

  Carson, Rob, Mount St Helens: The Eruption and Recovery of a Volcano (Seattle, Sasquatch Books, 1990)

  Clarke, Arthur C., Voice across the Sea (London, Frederick Muller Ltd, 1958)

  Colijn, H., Neerlands Indie Land en Volk (Amsterdam, Elsevier, 1912)

  Conrad, Joseph, An Outcast of the Islands (London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1896)

  Couperus, Louis, The Hidden Force (Amherst, MA, University of Massachusetts Press, 1985)

  Cribb, Robert, Historical Atlas of Indonesia (London, Curzon Press, 2000)

  Daum, P. A., Ups and Downs of Life in the Indies (Singapore, Periplus 1999)

  Daws, Gavin, and Fujita, Marty, Archipelago: The Islands of Indonesia (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999)

  Decker, Robert, and Decker, Barbara, Volcanoes (New York, W. H. Freeman, 1979)

  De Vries, H. M. (ed.), The Importance of Java Seen from the Air (Batavia, H. M. De Vries, 1928)

  Fairchild, David, Garden Islands of the Great East (New York, Scribner, 1943)

  Forster, Harold, Flowering Lotus: A View of Java in the 1950s (London, Longman, Green & Co., 1958)

  Friederich, Walter L., Fire in the Sea. The Santorini Volcano: Natural History and the Legend of Atlantis (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000)

  Geertz, Clifford, The Religion of Java (New York, The Free Press, 1960)

  Gilbert, J. S., and Sparks, R. S. J., The Physics of Explosive Volcanic Eruptions (London, Geological Society of London, 1998)

  Haigh, K. R., Cableships and Submarine Cables (London, Adlard Coles, 1968)

  Hall, R., and Blundell, D. J. (eds.), Tectonic Evolution of Southeast Asia (London, Geological Society of London, 1996)

  Hamilton, Warren, Tectonics of the Indonesian Region (Washington, DC, US Geological Survey, 1979)

  Helsdingen, W. H. van, and Hoogenberk, Dr H., Mission Interrup-ted: The Dutch in the East Indies and Their Work in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam, Elsevier, 1945)

  Heuken, Adolf, SJ, Historical Sites of Jakarta (Jakarta, Cipta Loka Caraka, 2000)

  Hicks, Geoff, and Campbell, Hamish, Awesome Forces: The Natural Hazards that Threaten New Zealand (Wellington, NZ, Te Papa Press, 1998)

  Hillen, Ernest, The Way of a Boy: A Memoir of Java (London, Viking, 1993)

  Hobhouse, Henry, Seeds of Change: Five Plants that Transformed Mankind (London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985)

  Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (London, Simon & Schuster, 1997)

  Johnson, George (ed.), The All Red Line: The Annals and Aims of the Pacific Cable Project (Ottawa, James Hope & Sons, 1903)

  Kartodirdjo, Sartono, The Peasants' Revolt of Banten in 1888 (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1966)

  Keay, John, Empire's End: A History of the Far East from High Colonialism to Hong Kong (New York, Scribner, 1997)

  Kemp, P. H. van der, De Administratie der Geldmiddelen van Neer-land-Indie (The Financial Administration of the Dutch East Indies) (Amsterdam, J. H. de Bussy, 1881)

  Keys, David, Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of the Modern World (London, Century, 1999)

  Krafft, Maurice, Volcanoes (New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1993)

  Kuitenbrouwer, Maarten, The Netherlands and the Rise of Modern Imperialism (Providence, RI, Berg Publishers, 1991)

  Kumar, Ann, The Diary of a Javanese Muslim: Religion, Politio and the Pesantren 1883–1886 (Canberra, Australian Nation Universit 1985)

  Legge, J. D., Indonesia (New York, Prentice Hall, 1964)

  Levelink, Jose, Four Guided Walks through the Bogor Botanic Garden (Bogor, Bogorindo Botanicus, 1996)

  Lewis, Bernard, The Middle East: 2,000 Years of History from the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995)

  — What Went Wrong? The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002)

  Lucas, E. V., A Wanderer in Holland (London, Methuen & Co., 1905)

  Merrillees, Scott, Batavia in Nineteenth-Century Photographs (London, Curzon Press, 2000)

  Milton, Giles, Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1999)

  Money, J. W. B., Java, or, How to Manage a Colony (London, Hurst & Blackett, 1861)

  Multatuli [Dekker, Eduard Douwes], Max Havelaar, or The Coffee Auctions of a Dutch Trading Company (London, Heinemann, 1967)

  Naipaul, V. S., Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (London, Little, Brown, 1998)

  Netherlands Royal Mail Line, Java the Wonderland (Arnhem [n.d.])

  Nieuwenhuys, Rob, Mirror of the Indies: A History of Dutch Colonial Literature (Hong Kong, Periplus, 1999)

  — Faded Portraits: E. Breton de Nijs (Amherst, MA, University of Massachusetts Press, 1982)

  Oey, Eric (ed.), Java (Singapore, Periplus, 1997)

  Oosterzee, Penny van, When Worlds Collide: The Wallace Line (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1997)

  Oreskes, Naomi (ed.), Plate Tectonics (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 2001)

  Ponder, H. W., Javanese Panorama (London, Seeley, Service & Co. [1942])

  Poortenaar, Jan, An Artist in the Tropics (London, Sampson Low [1927])

  Pope-Hennessy, James, Verandah: Some Episodes in the Crown Colonies 1867–1889 (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1964)

  Preger, W., Dutch Administration in the Netherlands Indies (Mel-bourne, F. W. Cheshire, 1944)

  Quammen, David, The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions (New York, Scribner, 1996)

  Raby, Peter, Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2001)

  Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley, The History of Java (London, Black, Parbury & Allen, 1817)

  Read, Donald, The Power of News: The History of Reuters 1849–1989 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992)

  Reitsma, S. A., Van Stockum's Travellers' Handbook for the Dutch East Indies (The Hague, W. P. van Stockum & Son, 1930)

  Ross, Robert, and Winius, George, All of One Company: The VOC in Historical Perspective (Utrecht, HES Uitgivers, 1986)

  SarDesai, D. R., Southeast Asia, Past and Present (Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1989)

  Scarth, Alwyn, La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pelée (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002)

  — Vulcan's Fury: Man against the Volcano (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1999)

  Schama, Simon, Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Nether-lands 1780–1813 (London, Collins, 1977)

  Schoch, Robert M., Voices of the Rocks: A Scientist Looks at Catas-trophes and Ancient Civilizations (New York, Harmony Books, 1999)

  Scidmore, E. R., Java, the Garden of the East (New York, The Century Co., 1897)

  Severin, Timothy, The Spice Islands Voyage: The Quest for Alfred Wallace, the Man Who Shared Darwin's Discovery of Evolution (New York, Carroll & Graf, 1997)

  Shepard, Jim, Batting against Castro (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)

  Shermer, Michael, In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace (New York, Oxford University Press, 2002)

  Sigurdsson, Haraldur, Melting the Earth: The History of Ideas on Volcanic Eruptions (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999)

  Sitwell, Sacheverell, The Netherlands: A Study of Some Aspects of Art, Costume and Social Life (London, B. T. Batsford, 1948)

  Soebadio, Dr Haryati, et al. (ed.), Indonesian Heritage Encyclopedia (10 vols. pub., Singapore, Editions Didier Millet, 1996 et seq.)

  Standage, Tom, The Vic
torian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's Online Pioneers (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998)

  Stephens, Mitchell, A History of News: From the Drum to the Satellite (New York, Viking, 1988)

  Suárez, Thomas, Early Mapping of Southeast Asia (Hong Kong, Periplus, 1999)

  Taylor, Jean Gelman, The Social World of Batavia (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1983)

  Thornton, Ian, Krakatau: The Destruction and Reassembly of an Island Ecosystem (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1996)

  Turner, Peter (ed.), Java (Melbourne, Lonely Planet, 1995)

  Umbgrove, J. H. F., Structural History of the East Indies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1949)

  Vandenbosch, Amry, The Dutch East Indies, Its Government, Prob-lems and Politics (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1941)

  Vissering, G., Geweldige Natuurkrachten (Nature's Power) (Batavia, G. Kolff & Co., 1910)

  Vlekke, Bernard M., Nusantara: A History of the East Indian Archipelago (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1945)

  – The Story of the Dutch East Indies (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1945)

  Wallace, Alfred Russel, The Malay Archipelago. The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature (London, Macmillan, 1869)

  Weyer, Robert van de, Islam and the West: A New Political and Religious Order Post September 11 (Alresford, Hants, O Books, 2001)

  Wilkinson-Latham, Robert J., From Our Special Correspondent (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1979)

  Williams, Stanley, and Montaigne, Fen, Surviving Galeras (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 2001)

  Woodcock, George, The British in the Far East (New York, Atheneum, 1969)

  Zebrowski, Jr., Ernest, The Last Days of St Pierre (Piscataway, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 2002)

  Zeilinger de Boer, Jelle, and Sanders, Donald, Volcanoes in Human History (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2002)

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS,

  ERKENNINGEN, TERIMA KASIH

  To try to write an account of a long-ago explosion in a faraway place – far away, that is, when the volcano is to the west of Java and I live 9,944 miles from it, in the west of Massachusetts –requires a mule-train of helpers to bridge the distance, and a congress of libraries and librarians to compress the years. To meet both requirements I was exceptionally fortunate in finding the most congenial and knowledgeable legion of able and interested helpmeets, some of them old friends, many more of them brand new, without whose enthusiasm, skills and wisdom this story would have been much more difficult to relate. As I list them here, with gratitude and pleasure, I must none the less reassure each and every one that though all did their very best to guide, advise and warn me, such errors and misjudgements as may appear in the book – and I would like to think there are few – are my fault alone and should not, to any degree, be laid at their door.

  In the early stages of my research I was lucky enough to be directed, by courtesy of Atlas, my Dutch publishers, to the delightful Alicia Schrikker, a graduate student of Dutch colonial history at the University of Leiden. Alicia, whose professional area of interest encompasses the Dutch possessions in the East Indies, Ceylon and Japan, leapt at the chance of working on the story of Krakatoa, and in short order led me to sheaves of long-forgotten papers and archives and introduced me to battalions of long-overlooked and little-known players in the drama, fast making herself my most indispensable ally in the entire endeavour. While I owe much to many, my debt to Alicia is singular and incalculable; I wish also to thank her partner, Job Westrate, for his forbearance during the many days she worked with me, and for his later practical help when Alicia took off for her own studies in Colombo, Galle and southern Sri Lanka. Dr Wim van den Doel, a distinguished historian at Leiden, also readily gave of his advice. And I must record my personal gratitude to Hessel Stamhuis, a wise and kindly academic at the same university who came to stay with me in America: his death some months later was a sad shock.

  In Indonesia, where I travelled several times, my old friend Toni Tack, whom I had met some years before when we were exploring little-known Hindu temples in central Java, was enormously kind and helpful, and accompanied me to Jakarta on several occasions, as well as to those coastal communities of west Java that were worst affected by the calamity of 1883. Toni is a game and courageous lady – and, unhappily, she needs to be even more so nowadays, since the island of Bali, her chosen home for the past many years, is no longer so peaceful a place as once we all supposed – but she wisely elected not to come with me to climb the scorchingly hot slopes of Anak Krakatoa on those occasions when I felt so moved. Instead it was left to the redoubtable and engagingly named Boing, a guide from Anjer, to haul me up the ever growing mountain – a duty he performed with agility and eternally good spirits.

  Also in Indonesia I was given much help and hospitality by the British Ambassador, Richard Gozney; by Professor Sartono Kartodirdjo, the renowned historian at Jogj Gajah Mada University (who, in addition to offering his advice on the nature and meaning of the Banten Rebellion of 1888, also kindly gave me a pot of his wife's homemade Balinese nutmeg jam in return for the jar of TeaTogether's incomparable Lemon with Earl Grey Tea marmalade; which I sometimes use – as when turning up at teatime at Professor Kartodirdjo's house – as my calling-card); by Father Adolf Heuken, Jakarta's kindly (and Jesuit) urban historian; by George Benney and the staff of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Jakarta; by Trina Ebert and the staff at the Amanjiwo resort, close by the temple of Borobudur; by the Jakarta-based writers Scott Merrillees and Mark Hanusz; by the Indonesian bookstore owner and Krakatoa enthusiast Richard Oh; by my long-time friend Hannah Postgate, whose fondness of, and enthusiasm for, all things Javanese is inextinguishable and wonderfully infectious; and by Robert Hall of the University of London's Southeast Asia Research Group, whose expertise in the arena of the tectonic evolution of the region that includes Java and Sumatra – and thus Krakatoa – is well-nigh unrivalled.

  Others whose gave generously of their particular knowledge of the geology and geophysics of the region include Professor John Dewey, now at the University of California, Davis, and formerly Professor of Geology at Oxford; Rob McCaffrey and David Wark at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York; Charles Mandeville; Stephen Self; Vicky Bruce. John Rucklidge, who led the 1965 Oxford University Expedition to east Greenland, of which I was the most junior member, and who is now at the University of Toronto, was most helpful in reminding me of the scientific purpose and value of that remarkable adventure. Richard Fiske, of Washington's Smithsonian Institution and of the Global Volcanism Program – and with Tom Simkin author of the incomparable and near-definitive 1983 Smithsonian Press study of Krakatoa – was also generous with his time and insights.

  My friend Andrea Hsu, in Washington, DC, was as helpful with answering the more arcane research questions for this project as she has been in connection with similarly obscure queries for the last three of my books, and I cannot fully express in print my deepest gratitude to her. At rather longer distance, Penny van Oosterzee, Robert Cribb and Nicholas Pounder (in Australia), Eloise Van Niel (in Hawaii), Rob Whittaker and Professor Ceri Peach (in Oxford) all gave valuable advice on matters that ranged from the dietary preferences of nineteenth-century Batavians to the story of the botanical repopulation of the ruined islands around Krakatoa. I would like also to acknowledge the help of Adrian Beeby of Lloyd's, of Gina Douglas of the Linnean Society, Stephen Gillies, Amanda Green of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library, Ann Kumar, Laila Miletic-Vejzovic, Zyg Nilski, Margaret O'Clair, Vanessa E. Raizberg and Paula Szuch-man. The newly formed Gieben-Wulf Cultural Research Centre in London answered a single question that had long been nagging me, and they did so accurately, efficiently and very, very quickly – a trinity of attributes that I think all would agree augurs well for their success: I do wish Emma and Andrea well. My son Rupert Winchester performed yeoman service on
my behalf at the London Library (whose staff were unfailingly helpful) and at the Public Record Office, and in his dealings with Cable & Wireless.

  Norah O'Donnell, a wonderful old friend at the Humanities Division of the University of Chicago, helped me by borrowing on her staff card, and for two full years, a pair of extremely rare and crucial books from the university's Joseph Regenstein Library. I owe the very tolerant librarians there a great deal for not asking for the volumes to be returned (though both are now quite safely back on their shelves).

  Sophie Purdy kindly read and made most useful comments on the early drafts of the book: she deserves the very warmest of thanks.

  In London I wish once again to record my deep gratitude to my agent and friend Bill Hamilton. My new editor at Viking, Mary Mount, handled my rather less than elegant first telling of this complicated story with consummate brilliance, managing first to spot, with an uncanny and instinctive ability, all of the inconsistencies and structural flaws and infelicities that littered the submitted script, and then to iron them out and so save me, at the very least, from the critical mauling I am certain I at first deserved. Mary would not be surprised to learn that I truly cannot find words adequate to describe my pleasure in working with and for her: I hope that we may team up for many more fascinating projects like this in the years to come.

  Mary Mount's assistant, Julie Duffy, also made major contributions, most notably when it came time to find the pictures and other illustrations with which to leaven the text: I am most grateful to her. Soun Vannithone drew the line illustrations once again, and, as with the last book, he did so perfectly and exactly on time. Natacha du Pont du Bois coordinated with an almost terrifying efficiency what was the complicated and linguistically challenging task (since Soun is from Laos, and many of the pictures are from sources in Holland) of seeing that all the illustrated material was prepared properly and to a very demanding schedule.

  Once again Donna Poppy, surely the ablest of the world's copy editors, took on with an unstinting good cheer the monumental business of keeping the devil away from the details in a book that ranged through unfamiliar complexities of science and history, religion and sociology, where there were litanies of names in Dutch and Javanese that all needed checking, checking, checking. To Donna and to her colleague in New York, Sue Llewellyn: a thousand thanks and stet! to all you do.