Invention of Nature

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) changed the way we see the world. An intrepid explorer and visionary scientist, his restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether climbing the highest volcanoes in the world, risking his life in the Amazonian rainforest or racing through anthrax-infested Siberia. He discovered the magnetic equator, was the first to measure the Humboldt Current (which was then named after him), and predicted human-induced climate change as early as 1800. He wove together hard scientific data and measurements with art, history, poetry and politics. Humboldt saw nature as a global force and became the most interdisciplinary of all scientists.He was a man of contradictions who inspired princes and revolutionaries alike - and generations of thinkers and writers from Darwin to Henry David Thoreau and Jules Verne. He predated James Lovelock's Gaia theory by 150 years when he described Earth as a living organism, but his evocative descriptions of nature were loved (and copied) by the Romantic poets. The irony is that Humboldt's views have become so self-evident that we have largely forgotten the man behind them. But there exists a direct line of connection through his ideas, and through the many people whom he inspired. THE INVENTION OF NATURE traces these invisible threads that connect us to this extraordinary man. Humboldt was described by his contemporaries as the most famous man in the world after Napoleon, yet he is almost forgotten today. Andrea Wulf vividly brings this last polymath back to life, taking us on a fantastic voyage in his footsteps and those of his ideas as they go on to revolutionise science, conservation and preservation, nature writing, politics, art and the theory of evolution.In THE INVENTION OF NATURE, she reintroduces us to an unforgettable man and lost hero of science and shows us why understanding his vision of the world has become more necessary today than ever before. von Wulf, Andrea