Alexander von Humboldt and the Invention of Nature: How One of the Last True Polymaths Pioneered the Cosmos of Connections

‘One word: poetry. That’s what the world has to offer us,’ wrote Wilson in 2020. ‘A whole series of mysteries, of possible discoveries, of phenomena, of unexpected events, and objects, and things, and living organisms and so on. An infinitude, almost, on this planet, waiting out there to be enjoyed. There’s so many of this in the world waiting to b

When nature finds itself in need of new ideas, it strives to connect, not protect.

The young Latin American intellectual Simón Bolívar had sought him out in Rome one year to talk about political freedom. John Charles Frémont, who regarded Humboldt as a god, had gone off exploring and sprinkled Humboldt’s name all over the map of Nevada. John Bachman would say that his own interest in natural history began with meeting Humboldt at