The Mysteries of Taal: A Philippine Volcano and Lake, Her Sea Life and Lost Towns

Thomas R. Hargrove was raised on a cotton farm in West Texas, but has spent most of his adult life in South-east Asia. He received his B.S. degree from Texas A&M University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Iowa State University.

Hargrove has written one other book, A Dragon Lives Forever: War and Rice in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, 1969-1991 and beyond, to be published by Random House in 1991.

Hargrove joined the International Rice Research Institute as science editor in 1973, and now heads the IRRI Information Center. In 1988 he received the ACE Professional Award, the highest honor given to a single communicator by Agricultural Communicators in Education, a 650-member professional society done outside North America. He also received the 1988 ACE Award of Excellence in International Affairs.

Here, Hargrove sits overlooking Crater Lake, Taal's main crater, shortly after volcanic activity resumed in the spring of 1991.