Alexander von Humboldt : how the most famous scientist of the Romantic Age found the soul of nature / Maren Meinhardt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Meinhardt, Maren, author.

Standardized Title:

Longing for wide and unknown things

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Humboldt, Alexander von, 1769-1859.

Humboldt, Alexander von.

Scientists--Germany--Biography.

Scientists.

Germany.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Katonah, New York : BlueBridge, 2019.

Summary:

Alexander von Humboldt was the most famous scientist and explorer of his day. "I view him as one of the greatest ornaments of the age," wrote Thomas Jefferson, and he received Humboldt in the White House in 1804. Ralph Waldo Emerson celebrated Humboldt as "one of those wonders of the world," and John Muir exclaimed, "How intensely I desire to be a Humboldt!" The great German poet Goethe was Humboldt's friend, and after reading Humboldt's work, Charles Darwin yearned to travel to distant lands. From Humboldt Redwoods State Park in California to Humboldthain park in Berlin, from South America's Humboldt Current to Greenland's Humboldt Glacier, numerous places, plants, and animals around the world are named after him. Born in Berlin in 1769, the young Alexander von Humboldt moved in the circles of Romantic writers and thinkers, studied mining, and worked as an inspector of mines before his "longing for wide and unknown things" made him resign and begin his great scientific expedition. For five years, from 1799 to 1804, Humboldt traveled through Central and South America. He and his collaborator, the French botanist Aimé Bonpland, journeyed on foot, by boat, and with mules through grasslands and forests, on rivers and across mountain ranges, and when Humboldt returned to Europe his coffers were full of scientific treasures. His legacy includes a sprawling body of knowledge, from the charge found in electric eels to the distribution of plants across different climate zones, and from the bioluminescence of jellyfish to the composition of falling stars.

Contents:

1 'A Citizen of the World' p. 7

2 The View from Tegel p. 11

3 An Endless Horizon p. 15

4 The Discovery of Warmer Climes p. 23

5 'First Step into the World' p. 35

6 Hamburg, an Interlude p. 52

7 The Compensations of Mining p. 59

8 The Life of the Civil Servant p. 68

9 Chemical Attractions p. 78

10 Exposed Nerves p. 88

11 The Loosening of Ties p. 96

12 Goethe's 'Caravan' p. 102

13 Departures p. 115

14 Across the Atlantic p. 124

15 Decisions and Typhoid Fever p. 136

16 A New World p. 143

17 'The American Alps' p. 151

18 Taking Rousseau to America p. 161

19 Very Far from Prussia p. 167

20 Across the Watershed p. 178

21 'The Highest Habitation in the World' p. 193

22 'I Don't Want to End with a Tragedy' p. 208

23 The Mind Made Visible p. 219

24 A Different Life p. 231

25 'Love and Cheerfulness' p. 245.

Notes:

"Published in Great Britain under the title A longing for wide and unknown things by C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd."--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-269) and index.

ISBN:

1629190195

9781629190198

OCLC:

1064330356