The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt's New WorldThe acclaimed author of Founding Gardeners reveals the forgotten life of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world--and in the process created modern environmentalism. NATIONAL BEST SELLER One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, The James Wright Award for Nature Writing, the Costa Biography Award, the Royal Geographic Society's Ness Award, the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Kirkus Prize Prize for Nonfiction, the Independent Bookshop Week Book Award A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, Nature, Jezebel, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, New Scientist, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, The Spectator Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. In North America, his name still graces four counties, thirteen towns, a river, parks, bays, lakes, and mountains. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether he was climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infected Siberia or translating his research into bestselling publications that changed science and thinking. Among Humboldt's most revolutionary ideas was a radical vision of nature, that it is a complex and interconnected global force that does not exist for the use of humankind alone. Now Andrea Wulf brings the man and his achievements back into focus: his daring expeditions and investigation of wild environments around the world and his discoveries of similarities between climate and vegetation zones on different continents. She also discusses his prediction of human-induced climate change, his remarkable ability to fashion poetic narrative out of scientific observation, and his relationships with iconic figures such as Simón Bolívar and Thomas Jefferson. Wulf examines how Humboldt's writings inspired other naturalists and poets such as Darwin, Wordsworth, and Goethe, and she makes the compelling case that it was Humboldt's influence that led John Muir to his ideas of natural preservation and that shaped Thoreau's Walden. With this brilliantly researched and compellingly written book, Andrea Wulf shows the myriad fundamental ways in which Humboldt created our understanding of the natural world, and she champions a renewed interest in this vital and lost player in environmental history and science. |
Contents
Beginnings | 13 |
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | 25 |
In Search of a Destination | 39 |
South America | 53 |
The Llanos and the Orinoco | 61 |
Across the Andes | 75 |
Return to Berlin | 189 |
Russia | 201 |
Ernst Haeckel and Humboldt | 298 |
John Muir and Humboldt | 315 |
Epilogue | 335 |
Illustration Credits | 343 |
Chimborazo | 348 |
Thomas Jefferson and Humboldt | 359 |
Europe | 372 |
Berlin | 411 |
Charles Darwin and Humboldt | 217 |
Humboldts Cosmos | 235 |
Henry David Thoreau | 249 |
The Greatest Man Since the Deluge | 265 |
George Perkins Marsh and Humboldt | 283 |
Paris | 425 |
A Note on Humboldts Publications | 431 |
435 | |
463 | |
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Common terms and phrases
AH Ansichten 1849 AH Aspects 1849 AH Cosmos AH Cotta Letters AH Diary AH Letters 1973 AH Letters Russia AH Letters USA AH Personal Narrative AH to Carl AH to Johann AH to WH AH Views AH WH AH's Alexander von Humboldt April Arago Arana August Beck Berlin Biermann Bogotá Bolívar Bonpland Bruhns Carl Freiesleben Carl Ludwig Willdenow Charles Lyell Chimborazo Cotta Letters 2009 Cumaná Darwin Correspondence December Emerson February forests Friedrich Wilhelm Friedrich Wilhelm IV Georg von Cotta German Goethe Goethe's Hooker Humboldt wrote ibid January Jefferson JM online Johann Georg John Stevens Henslow July June Kosmos Letters Russia 2009 Letters USA 2004 Lowenthal 2003 Marc-Auguste Pictet March mountains November numbers October Orinoco Paris Personal Narrative 1814-29 plants Russia scientific scientists South America Spanish Spencer Fullerton Baird Thoreau Journal trees Walden WH CH Letters WH to CH William Darwin Fox Yosemite Yosemite Valley