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The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science cover

The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science

Andrea Wulf

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The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science

The Invention of Nature won the 2015 Costa Biography Award and the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2016. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is the great lost scientist - more things are named after him than anyone else. There are towns, rivers, mountain ranges, the ocean current that runs along the South American coast, there's a penguin, a giant squid - even the Mare Humboldtianum on the moon. His colourful adventures read like something out of a Boy's Own story: Humboldt explored deep into the rainforest, climbed the world's highest volcanoes and inspired princes and presidents, scientists and poets alike. Napoleon was jealous of him; Simon Bolívar's revolution was fuelled by his ideas; Darwin set sail on the Beagle because of Humboldt; and Jules Verne's Captain Nemo owned all his many books. He simply was, as one contemporary put it, 'the greatest man since the Deluge'. Taking us on a fantastic voyage in his footsteps - racing across anthrax-infected Russia or mapping tropical rivers alive with crocodiles - Andrea Wulf shows why his life and ideas remain so important today. Humboldt predicted human-induced climate change as early as 1800, and The Invention of Nature traces his ideas as they go on to revolutionize and shape science, conservation, nature writing, politics, art and the theory of evolution. He wanted to know and understand everything and his way of thinking was so far ahead of its time that it's only coming into its own now. Alexander von Humboldt really did invent the way we see nature.

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Publisher
Hachette UK
Year
2015
ISBN-13
9781848548992
Genre
Biography & Memoir
Topics
Alexander von HumboldtHistory of scienceExploration and natural history

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