**The acclaimed author of *The Brother Gardeners* and *Founding Gardeners* reveals the forgotten life of the visionary German naturalist whose ideas continue to influence how we view ourselves and our relationship with the natural world today. ** Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infested Siberia. He came up with a radical vision of nature, that it was a complex and interconnected global force and did not exist for man's use alone. Ironically, his ideas have become so accepted and widespread that he has been nearly forgotten. Now Andrea Wulf brings the man and his achievements back into focus: his investigation of wild environments around the world; his discoveries of similarities between climate zones on different continents; his prediction of human-induced...
ALSO BY ANDREA WULF
(with Emma Gieben-Gamal)
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2015 by Andrea Wulf
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., Toronto. Simultaneously published in Great Britain by John Murray (Publishers), a Hachette UK Company, London.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wulf, Andrea.
The invention of nature : Alexander von Humboldt’s new world / by Andrea Wulf.—First American Edition.
pages cm
“THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK”—T.p. verso.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-385-35066-2 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-0-385-35067-9 (eBook)
1. Humbolt, Alexander von, 1769–1859. 2. Scientists—Germany—Biography. 3. Naturalists—Germany—Biography. I. Title.
Q143.H9W85 2015
509.2—dc23
[B] 2015017505
Cover design by Kelly Blair
Maps drawn by Rodney Paull
v3.1
To Linnéa (P.o.P.)
Close your eyes, prick your ears, and from the softest sound to the wildest noise, from the simplest tone to the highest harmony, from the most violent, passionate scream to the gentlest words of sweet reason, it is by Nature who speaks, revealing her being, her power, her life, and her relatedness so that a blind person, to whom the infinitely visible world is denied, can grasp an infinite vitality in what can be heard.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Prologue
PART I. DEPARTURE: EMERGING IDEAS
1. Beginnings
2. Imagination and Nature: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Humboldt
3. In Search of a Destination
PART II. ARRIVAL: COLLECTING IDEAS
4. South America
5. The Llanos and the Orinoco
6. Across the Andes
7. Chimborazo
8. Politics and Nature: Thomas Jefferson and Humboldt
PART III. RETURN: SORTING IDEAS
9. Europe
10. Berlin
11. Paris
12. Revolutions and Nature: Simón Bolívar and Humboldt
13. London
14. Going in Circles: Maladie Centrifuge
PART IV. INFLUENCE: SPREADING IDEAS
15. Return to Berlin
16. Russia
17. Evolution and Nature: Charles Darwin and Humboldt
18. Humboldt’s
19. Poetry, Science and Nature: Henry David Thoreau and Humboldt
PART V. NEW WORLDS: EVOLVING IDEAS
20. The Greatest Man Since the Deluge
21. Man and Nature: George Perkins Marsh and Humboldt
22. Art, Ecology and Nature: Ernst Haeckel and Humboldt
23. Preservation and Nature: John Muir and Humboldt
Epilogue
Humboldt’s Journey Across the Americas, 1799–1804
Humboldt’s Journey through Venezuela, 1800
Humboldt’s Journey Across Russia, 1829
Alexander von Humboldt’s books have been published in many languages. When quoting from his books directly, I have compared the original German (where applicable) and contemporary English editions. Where newer English editions have been available, I have checked those against the older translations and where I felt that the newer edition provided a better translation, I have chosen that version (details are in the endnotes). Sometimes neither translation captured Humboldt’s prose, or whole sentences were missing – in which case I have taken the liberty of providing a new translation. When other protagonists referred to Humboldt’s work, I have used the editions that they were reading. Charles Darwin, for example, read Humboldt’s
Prologue
