The Invention of Nature

Even prior to reading this book, I casually considered Alexander von Humboldt to be one of my geographical heroes, a workaholic as addicted to adventure as he was obsessed with advancing our understanding of the planet.

However, Wulf’s book opened my eyes not only to the sheer extent of his contributions to how we view the world, from human-induced climate change to the development of increasingly accurate and informative maps and diagrams but also to his cultural and political significance, influencing politicians and inspiring poets to continue fashioning and representing the planet as they see fit.

In placing the… show more.

Germans can be romantic, too, if they set about it in earnest.

Young Alexander von Humboldt didn’t do things by halves. He made his own muscles twitch rather than a dead frog’s. Initially, he used the current from a galvanic cell (which made him faint). He later took up electric eels from Venezuela, caught with the unwilling help of wild horses.

Humboldt spent a large part of his fortune on a five-year journey through Latin America, which catapulted him to fame. The rest of his money went into publishing dozens of volumes relating to his explorations and describing the Cosmos,… show more.

The author has spent considerable time pursuing and following in the footsteps of Alexander von Humboldt, and we are all the better for it as readers of her wonderful biography and historical account.

This fascinating and influential, but often forgotten, man influenced the great scientists and scholars of the 19th Cent. like no other. Without Humboldt, there would have been no Darwin, by his own admission, and countless other major figures owed their famous predecessor this same debt.

His resurgence in recent years as the Father of Ecology has brought his name to the forefront once more. Wulf’s detailed… show more.

This biography of Alexander von Humboldt is very worthy for a ton of reasons, but Humboldt’s explorations in the Americas between 1799-1804 get him on this list.

Thomas Jefferson called Humboldt “the most scientific man of the age” for good reason: Humboldt is considered the father of ecology, and of the study of the environment. One of the best narrative nonfiction books of recent years.

We live in a golden age of discovering complex systems. The path was opened by the science of ecology, which Alexander von Humboldt founded in the early 1800s after years of exploring South America. Taking meticulous observations and recognising and communicating patterns that connect great swathes of the biosphere, Humboldt was inspired by the indigenous peoples with whom he lived and worked. The eternal need for reciprocity and peace with nature are the common insights of ecology and indigenous cultures from the Andes to Australia. They offer a great theme opposed to the other, darker inventions of recent centuries: imperialism,… show more.

He was one of the most important and popular scientists in the history of men, but for many years I didn´t know who Alexander von Humboldt really was and what he actually did do—until I read the book of Andrea Wulff. She rummaged through archives and wrote a fluffy and fascinating biography about the man who revolutionized our view on nature: Up to then it was thought that every animal and plant has its own specific place on Earth, right there where God did create them. Von Humboldt discovered that every species has its own specific climate niche and lives… show more.

Alexander von Humboldt was the first to view the natural world from a generalist’s perspective. I felt I knew Humboldts’ vita and works, but Andrea Wulfe presented an overwhelming synthesis that gave it a new glow. Hard to stop reading. She grasped his key moments of inspiration. Viewing the newly colonized tropical world, he clearly predicted the climatic consequences of deforestation, he discovered the world connecting lines of equal temperature that control all life zones, and he realized how connected everything is in nature. And even more so in the anthroposphere. A must-read. 

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was a scientific superstar in his day, a prolific communicator of the wonders and workings of the natural world, a friend of Goethe and Thomas Jefferson, and an inspirer of Charles Darwin and John Muir. Wulf’s book about this fascinating scientist is an engaging and thoroughly readable account of his quest to understand nature, a quest that took him across Russia to Siberia, across the Atlantic from Europe to the Caribbean, and into South America and the Andes. Wulf’s prose brings to life Humboldt’s sense of awe before nature, and his intense curiosity and drive to… show more.

An impressive and in-depth biopic of the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt. Wulf is our guide though his personal and working life, as well as the remarkable process by which he came to comprehend the incredibly complex web of life, and led to our modern appreciation for the natural world.