{"id":2125,"date":"2017-04-13T09:15:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2125"},"modified":"2017-04-13T09:15:27","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:15:27","slug":"at-the-intersection-of-nature-and-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2125","title":{"rendered":"At the intersection of nature and imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/em>It’s always a pleasure to have a review from Tom Dillon, who draws attention to\u00a0books I might otherwise miss.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Tom Dillon<\/p>\n

THE INVENTION OF NATURE: ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT\u2019S NEW WORLD. By Andrea Wulf. Alfred A. Knopf. 473 pages. $30, hardback<\/p>\n

\"nature\"<\/a>Be honest, now. Who was Alexander von Humboldt? Do you know? The chances are, if you have been living in 20th<\/sup>\u00a0and 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century America, you don\u2019t. He may be memorialized in things like the Humboldt Current running up the coast of Chile and Peru, dozens of parks and monuments and mountains in Latin America and more than 100 animals. Indeed, the state of Nevada was almost named for him. But for too many, he\u2019s been forgotten.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to say, says Andrea Wulf in this absorbing 2016 book, that the peripatetic German scientist and explorer is responsible for our concept of nature itself. He was a mentor for such people as Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, Ernst Haeckel, John Muir and others. Go look at \u201cThe Andes of Ecuador,\u201d Frederic Church\u2019s marvelous painting at Winston-Salem\u2019s Reynolda House, and you\u2019ll be looking at the work of another person inspired by Humboldt.<\/p>\n

In the 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> centuries \u2013 Humboldt lived from 1769 to 1859 \u2013 he was probably the best-known scientist and explorer in the world, breaking new trails in the South American rain forest, climbing to heights unknown on Ecuador\u2019s Chimborazo volcano \u2013 then thought to be the tallest mountain in the world \u2013 and influencing people as diverse as Thomas Jefferson and Simon Bolivar.<\/p>\n

But Humboldt was German, and things German fell out of favor in much of the West in the early 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century. \u201cBoth world wars of the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century cast long shadows,\u201d Wulf writes, \u201cand neither Britain nor America were places for the celebration of a great German mind anymore.\u201d In Cleveland in 1917, German books were burned in a public bonfire \u2013 where 50 years earlier thousands had marched in celebration of Humboldt\u2019s centennial.<\/p>\n

So why should we care? Well, Wulf says, partly because Humboldt\u2019s life was colorful and \u201cpacked with adventure.\u201d He was one of the first explorers of Latin and South America and later traveled far across Russia, longing to reach the Himalaya. But more than that, she says, Humboldt\u2019s writings blurred the line between science and the arts. He could talk to both farmers and scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumboldt\u2019s insight that we can only truly understand nature by using our imagination makes him a visionary,\u201d Wulf writes. \u201cEnvironmentalists, ecologists and nature writers today remain firmly rooted in Humboldt\u2019s vision \u2013 although many have never heard of him.\u201d She calls Humboldt their \u201cfounding father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Humboldt and his brother, Wilhelm, were born to an aristocratic Prussian family but had an unhappy childhood after their father\u2019s early death. Both boys were tutored by a string of Enlightenment thinkers who taught them a love or truth, liberty and knowledge, but their mother expected them to become civil servants, a future that agreed with Wilhelm but frustrated Alexander.<\/p>\n

Alexander took a job as a mining inspector, but on his mother\u2019s death began planning with a young French scientist, Aime Bonpland, for a voyage to South America. They were eventually able to get permission from Spain to visit its colonies, and in 1799 set sail for what today is known as Venezuela \u2013 then New Andalusia.<\/p>\n

That was the start of five eventful years during which Humboldt and Bonpland explored the rain forests, established a connection between the Orinoco and Amazon river basins, climbed mountains and eventually made it to Peru, Mexico, Cuba and the new United States, where Humboldt found a kindred spirit in President Thomas Jefferson. His writings about all this made his international reputation among both scientists and the reading public in Europe.<\/p>\n

Humboldt\u2019s Personal Narrative<\/em> of his travels attracted immediate attention in Europe and was eventually followed by dozens of other books, papers and articles, culminating in his publication of his five-volume Cosmos: Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe<\/em>, in 1845. The first two volumes were huge best sellers and by 1851 had been translated into 10 languages.<\/p>\n

This book is a follow-up to Andrea Wulf\u2019s Founding Gardeners<\/em> and The Brother Gardeners<\/em>, about the interest in the natural world among America\u2019s founders. And while it takes Wulf in a new direction, it features the same seemingly effortless writing and fine attention to detail. It\u2019s fair to say that the sections on Humboldt\u2019s travels are by far the most interesting part of the book.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s all very readable.<\/p>\n

Humboldt could perhaps captivate others as he captivated John Muir, who wrote at the start of his own travels, \u201cHow intensely I desire to be a Humboldt,\u201d desperate to see the \u201csnow-capped Andes and the flowers of the Equator.\u201d<\/p>\n