Perhaps the most startling point for me was the way in which Humboldt was influenced by, and in his turn influenced others. She places him perfectly in his time and has a confidence about all that was happening in the world which he inhabited. Wulf's style of writing is lively and engaging and it's not just her knowledge of Humboldt that's wide. I couldn't have been more wrong: I was enthralled from the beginning. I expected that the book would be intermittently interesting, but largely hard work.

I have to declare a disinterest here: although I have a questioning mind so far as the environmental movement is concerned I have little interest in the natural sciences and I came to this book largely because it had won the Costa Biography Award 2015. His ideas still shape our thinking: in fact, it was difficult not to come to the conclusion that his ideas are now so obvious that we've largely forgotten the man behind them, but equally he was elusive even to those who knew him best.Īndrea Wulf's biography is exceptional. He was the first person to talk about climate change and to point out exactly what man was doing to the planet. His importance lies in his holistic approach to nature and the fact that he was the father of the environmental movement. But it was his travels in Latin America which would lay the foundations for his life's work.Īlthough Humboldt has had more places named after him than anyone else, he has largely been forgotten, perhaps because his name is not associated with a great discovery. His first travels would be in Europe where he met and was influenced by people such as Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, who had travelled with Thomas Cook.

The family was well-to-do and both brothers benefitted from an excellent education, although they lacked affection from their emotionally-distant widowed mother, but it was a legacy from her which would fund Alexander's first explorations.

Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin in 1769, the younger brother of Wilhelm von Humboldt who would become a Prussian minister but who is perhaps better remembered as a philosopher and linguist.

The invention of nature humboldt