Summary
"The 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. Alexander von Humboldt (1769 -- 1859) was an intrepid explorer... Full description
- Part 1. Departure: Emerging ideas. Beginnings
- Imagination and nature: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Humboldt
- In search of a destination.
- Part 2. Arrival: Collecting ideas. South America
- The Llanos and the Orinoco
- Across the Andes
- Chimborazo
- Politics and nature: Thomas Jefferson and Humboldt.
- Part 3. Return: Sorting ideas. Europe
- Berlin
- Paris
- Revolutions and nature: Simon Bolivar and Humboldt
- London
- Going in circles: Maladie Centrifuge
- Part 4. Influence: Spreading ideas. Return to Berlin
- Russia
- Evolution and nature: Charles Darwin and Humboldt
- Humbolt's Cosmos
- Poetry, science and nature: Henry David Thoreau and Humboldt
- Part 5. New worlds: Evolving ideas. The greatest man since the deluge
- Man and nature: George Perkins Marsh and Humboldt
- Art, ecology and nature: Ernst Haeckel and Humboldt
- Preservation and nature: John Muir and Humboldt.