5/27/2023 0 Comments The invention of nature humboldt![]() In this gripping study, Wulf follows Humboldt from his stifling youth in Prussia to the liberating rainforests of South America, where, during an arduous five-year expedition, he dodged crocodiles on the Orinoco and fell asleep to the sound of snoring river dolphins. For a while, he had the world at his feet, and was considered the most famous man after Napoleon. Humboldt is also the name of an ocean current, a penguin and a long list of other animals and plants.ĭuring his long life, however, the naturalist, aristocrat-turned-revolutionary and writer of some of the most influential books of the 19th century was a guiding light to generations of scientists, poets and politicians who are now far more celebrated than he is. It is extraordinary that a man once so revered is now largely forgotten, the more so given his name is dotted over maps of half the world, attached to mountains, lakes, rivers and towns – and even to a “sea” on the moon. Historian Andrea Wulf calls Humboldt the lost hero of science. ![]() ![]() Humboldt was Darwin’s hero: his vivid descriptions of the tropics and revolutionary ideas about nature were the reason Darwin signed up for the Beagle. ![]()
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