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Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883

Book by Simon Winchester · 2 quotes · Dutch East Indies, Geology, Volcanism

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Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 Quotes

“The scientific world of the time was in the midst of a terrible ferment, with discoveries and realizations coming at an unseemly rate. To many in the ranks of the conservative and the devout, the new theories of geology and biology were delivering a series of hammer blows to mankind's self-regard. Geologists in particular seemed to have gone berserk, to have thrown off all sense of proper obeisance to their Maker... Mankind, it seemed, was now suddenly rather – dare one say it? – insignificant. He may not have been, as he had eternally supposed, specially created.”

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Book:Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
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“Sophisticated human beings were on hand to see this volcano's convulsions, they were able to investigate the event, and they were able to attempt to understand the processes that had caused such dreadful violence...their observations, painstaking and precise as science demanded, collided head-on with a most discomfiting reality: that while in 1883 the world was becoming ever more scientifically advanced, it was in part because of these same advances that its people found themselves in a strangely febrile and delicately balanced condition...”

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Book:Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
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