Krakatoa was an international bestseller in hardback.Simon Winchester'sbrilliant chronicle of the destruction of the Indonesian island ofKrakatoain 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 & how rubber allowed the world to talk; of Alfred Wegener, the crack-pot German explorer & father of geology. In breathtaking detail he describes how one island & its inhabitants were blasted out of existence & how colonial society was turned upside-down in a cataclysm whose echoes are still felt to this day.°°°'Bracingly apocalyptic stuff: atmospheric, chock-full of information & with a constantly escalating sense of pace & tension' —Sunday Telegraph°°°Simon Winchesterwas born & educated in England. He was a foreign correspondent for more than thirty years includng twelve years for theGuardianin Asia, reporting on the Hong Kong handover to China for the newspaper in 1997, & twenty years as the Asia editor forCondé Nast Traveler. He contributes to a number of American magazines, as well as theDaily Telegraph, theSpectator, & theBBC.Winchesteris the author of many highly acclaimed & bestsellng works of non-fiction.The River at the Centre of the World(Viking 1997/Penguin 1998) was shortlisted for the1998Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award.