First impressions review: The Invention of Nature; Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World, by Andrea Wulf
This is not the first biography I’ve read of Alexander Von Humboldt, a naturalist who was highly influential at the turn of 19th century – that was ‘Humboldt’s Cosmos’. As this impressively-ahead-of-his-time fellow has been largely forgotten in the English-speaking world - though still fairly well known in Latin America and Germany – it is good to see more than one book focusing on his contributions. It’s been a while since I read ‘Humboldt’s Cosmos’ but, as I recall, it mainly focused on his voyage to the Americas and his research. This book covers that too, of course, but spends much more time talking about his networks and influences and more socio-political ideas, which are quite fascinating. Long story short: the man knew everyone from (writer/scientist) Goethe to (geologist) Lyell to (revolutionary) Simon Bolivar, and influenced everyone from Darwin to Thoreau!
In terms of science, one of Humboldt’s most lasting influences was the observation that there are similar vegetation types in areas of the world that have similar climates: While at the foot of the Andes you are in tropical jungle, but as you go upward you reach areas where the species look more like things you’d find in Switzerland or Finland. Today we call these vegetation types “biomes”. But Humboldt excelled at “ecological thinking” all around, before “ecology” was even a word. For instance, he observed that in areas that have been deforested the local climate is hotter and drier, which can have negative impacts on local waterways, and he began to voice concerns about the effects humans were having on nature. Along the way, he invented isotherms (the lines on maps showing where temperatures are the same) and found the magnetic equator. He wrote dozens of books based on a combination of his own travels in Latin America (and later Russia) and data collected by other scientists. Though some of these books were big expensive tomes with colored plates, he made sure to include volumes in the series that were both cheaper and written for the average non-scientist reader, and they greatly increased the appetite for nature-writing.
In the next few generations scientists were to become more and more specialized, and the Romantic movement in art and literature would reflect the sense that science stripped the wonder from the world. But Humboldt, who one could think of as either one of the last of the “Renaissance men” or a forerunner of modern attempts to recapture interdisciplinary thinking, felt that nature must both be measured scientifically and experienced with the senses and emotions. As a young man he spent a good bit of time with Goethe, who he encouraged in his scientific interests – something that Goethe’s more arts-and-humanities-focused friends did not always approve of, but which the older scholar found invigorating and inspirational. It was suggested by some at the time that Goethe’s version of both Faust and Mephistopheles owed some of their traits to Humboldt! It would be later figures like Ernst Haeckel and John Muir who kept this way of thinking alive (but more on them in a bit).
However, Humboldt was ahead of his time in a variety of other ways as well. He was very much anti-slavery and anti-colonialism, arguing that these systems had destructive effects on both people and the land. In fact, it is suggested that one reason he never got permission to study the Himalayas, as he’d hoped, is that the British were well aware of how he’d skewered Spanish rule in Latin America and didn’t want to let him anywhere near India! He did eventually get leave from the Czar, at the age of 60, to travel through Russia on the promise he wouldn’t get political…and even then he only kinda-sorta stuck to that promise! Humboldt was fascinated by the indigenous cultures of the Americas, and argued that they were worthy of respect. He was a friend of Simon Bolívar, and likewise hoped for the independence of the Americas – but correctly predicted that long-reinforced divisions of race and class would present problems. It must have been hard for someone who embraced the “spirit of 1789” so enthusiastically to see not only the return of autocratic rule in France, but new republics of the Americas whose revolutions he likewise cheered on maintain their reliance on slavery and the countries of Europe slide into more and more reactionary attitudes. It is ironic that, in order to have an income, he ended up as a chamberlain to the Prussian king – who he at first hoped to shape but eventually had to admit that when it came to any practical matters, let alone the Prussian people, the monarch “hardly gives them a thought.” Humboldt held that humans all came from one root, and might have adapted to different environments but “all are alike designed for freedom.” He seems to have included women in this to at least some extent, for he welcomed them to attend his free lectures (not standard at the time). While in some other cases we might suspect an ulterior motive, that was clearly not the case for Humboldt.
The reason this is tagged as “LGBT+ main character” is that Humboldt was almost certainly either asexual and homoromantic, or gay and really good at plausible deniability. Many of his contemporaries noted his complete lack of romantic interest in women as well as the succession of unusually close friendships/research partnerships he struck up with other men, some of whom lived with him. One botanist grumbled that he’d been denied a spot in Humboldt’s expedition, only for him to add some less-trained “Adonis1”. At the same time, though someone so famous must have had some enemies, no one ever dug up any more than that. Humboldt’s descriptions of himself are equivocal. Of his first intense friendship, a college roommate, he wrote: “I have never loved someone so deeply,” but chided himself for getting so attached when they would inevitably be separated after graduation. He also wrote of Aimee Bonpland, his main companion in Latin America, that he was “a good person” but “has left me very cold for the past six months, that means, I only have a scientific relationship with him” – kind of implying that wasn’t the norm! At some points he claimed not to have any sensual passions while at other points said time spent in nature was good for re-directing such energies. Therefore, while a definitive categorization may not be possible…let’s go with “definitely not straight”. And while one could speculate that this may have helped him develop the sympathy with other marginalized groups noted above…sadly, a lot of people seem terrible at recognizing such similarities! If a feeling of mutual marginalization played any role in his beliefs in equality, then, it was likely because of Humboldt’s unusual ability to see connections between things in general.
Alexander and his brother Wilhelm grew up in a very demanding household, where emotional expression was discouraged. Though the former’s passion for nature and the latter’s bookishness were evident early on, their mother pushed them both to enter the civil service. Wilhelm said he believed his brother’s frequent youthful illnesses were a kind of psychological reaction to unhappiness, and later on, Alexander colorfully described the buildup of frustrated energy as feeling like being chased by “10,000 pigs”, Wilhelm’s fiancée Caroline expressed fear that he was going to snap. But Alexander tried to be a dutiful son; Though suffering from fernweh – an amazing German word meaning “a longing for distant places” - he enrolled in a mining academy near Dresden, supposedly to train for the Prussian Ministry of Mines. Neither brother attended their mother’s funeral, and Alexander used his inheritance to fund his trip to South America. The two remained quite close with each other2, though Wilhelm did occasionally chide his little brother on matters of propriety, pointing out that staying in (fun, bubbly, center-of-science) Paris while France and Prussia were in conflict looked unpatriotic, and that the intensity of some of his “friendships” might not be healthy. Not that Alexander listened – he hated Berlin, and avoided living there as long as possible, and as for the latter, the conversation seems to have gone down roughly like this:
WH: “Are you telling me you can’t be away from this roommate or lab partner or…whatever for two weeks while you visit us? No - I’m not hosting him. It looks weird.”
AH: “Fine. I’ll book a hotel room, then. Is that better?”
WH: (sigh) “No, Alex. Not really…”
1. Name of Venus’ human boyfriend, and byword for an extremely handsome man.
2. Wilhelm actually used a similar holistic approach to the study of languages that Alexander used toward the natural world, and they shared ideas frequently.
Somewhat unusually for a biography, the last part of this book switches to following other people, thereby tracing Humboldt’s influences for almost a century after his death. Darwin, of course, was greatly inspired by Humboldt’s writings3…though he was a little disappointed to meet his hero and discover that between his introversion and Humboldt’s extreme talkativeness, he couldn’t get a word in edgewise4! Thoreau’s ‘Walden’ became the book it did because Humboldt’s ‘Cosmos’ gave the American the confidence to weave together science and poetry. Haeckel was likewise inspired to use art to illuminate his scientific discoveries and promote Darwin’s evolutionary theories – and Humboldt’s area of science, which he named oecologie (ecology). George Perkins Marsh expanded on Humboldt’s observations of environmental degradation to write ‘Man and Nature’. And John Muir, who wrote “how intensely I desire to be a Humboldt”, made use of the joint language of feeling and science to promote conservation.
3. And by pirate naturalist William Dampier, whose books Humboldt also carried on his voyage to South America…but Dampier is not mentioned in this book for some reason, even though he arguably created the appetite for science-flavored travel writing that Humboldt was able to take advantage of.
4. Though Humboldt did instigate a German translation of ‘Voyage of the Beagle’, which Darwin was extremely pleased about.
Overall recommendation: This book shot Humboldt to the top of my list of “historical figures I could probably actually be friends with.” If you like science and nature writing or biographies or both – definitely spend a few days with him through Wulf’s engaging prose.
