The Invention of Nature
From the Prologue... When nature is perceived as a web, its vulnerability also becomes obvious. Everything hangs together. If one thread is pulled, the whole tapestry may unravel. After he saw the devastating environmental effects of colonial plantations at Lake Valencia in Venezuela in 1800, Humboldt became the first scientist to talk about harmful human-induced climate change. Deforestation there had made the land barren, water levels of the lake were falling and with the disappearance of brushwood torrential rains had washed away the soils on the surrounding mountain slopes. Humboldt was the first to explain the forest's ability to enrich the atmosphere with moisture and its cooling effect, as well as its importance for water retention and protection against soil erosion. He warned that humans were meddling with the climate and that this could have an unforeseeable impact on ‘future generations'. The Invention of Nature traces the invisible threads that connect us to this extraordinary man. Humboldt influenced many of the greatest thinkers, artists and scientists of his day. Thomas Jefferson called him ‘one of the greatest ornaments of the age'. Charles Darwin wrote that ‘nothing ever stimulated my zeal so much as reading Humboldt's Personal Narrative,' saying that he would not have boarded the Beagle, nor conceived of the Origin of Species, without Humboldt. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge both incorporated Humboldt's concept of nature into their poems.
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What Hacker News says
- The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf
It details Alexander von Humboldt, his travels through South America and Siberia, and general contributions to science.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23995249-the-invention-o...
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- I am almost finished with a book about Humboldt (Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf). It's been a fantastic read, and I was surprised/ashamed that I hadn't known anything about Humboldt until earlier this year.
- The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf is a fantastic, highly recommended read. It covers Humboldt’s life as an adventuring proto-scientist as well as the impact he’s had on the world’s great scientific and artistic minds (Darwin, Goethe, many more). Despite his huge impact, the world has mostly forgotten about him, sadly.
- The article references Andrea Wulf's the Invention of Nature a number of times, which I'd like to give a hearty, emphatic +1 recommendation to. It's a beautifully written biography and the Vintage Books paperback is also a physically beautiful book.
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