The Invention of Nature Read Free Page A

then discarded) ‘Gäa’ as a title.
    We are shaped by the past. Nicolaus Copernicus showed us our place in the universe, Isaac Newton explained the laws of nature, Thomas Jefferson gave us some of our concepts of liberty and democracy, and Charles Darwin proved that all species descend from common ancestors. These ideas define our relationship to the world.
    Humboldt gave us our concept of nature itself. 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. Like a rope, Humboldt’s concept of nature connects us to him.
    The Invention of Nature is my attempt to find Humboldt. It has been a journey across the world that led me to archives in California, Berlin and Cambridge among many others. I read through thousands of letters but I also followed Humboldt’s footsteps. I saw the ruin of the anatomy tower in Jena in Germany where Humboldt spent many weeks dissecting animals, and at 12,000 feet on the Antisana in Ecuador, with four condors circling above and surrounded by a herd of wild horses, I found the dilapidated hut where he had spent a night in March 1802.
    In Quito, I held Humboldt’s original Spanish passport in my hands – the very papers that allowed him to travel through Latin America. In Berlin, I finally understood how his mind worked when I opened the boxes that contained his notes – marvellous collages of thousands of bits of paper, sketches and numbers. Closer to home, at the British Library in London, I spent many weeks reading Humboldt’s published books, some so huge and heavy that I could scarcely lift them on to the table. In Cambridge I looked at Darwin’s own copies of Humboldt’s books – those that Darwin had kept on a shelf next to his hammock on the Beagle. They are filled with Darwin’s pencil marks. Reading these books was like eavesdropping on Darwin talking to Humboldt.
    I found myself lying at night in the Venezuelan rainforest listening to the strange bellowing cry of howler monkeys, but also stuck in Manhattan without electricity during Hurricane Sandy when I had travelled there to read some documents in the New York Public Library. I admired the old manor house with its tenth-century tower in the little village of Piòbesi outside Turin where George Perkins Marsh wrote parts of Man and Nature in the early 1860s – a book inspired by Humboldt’s ideas and one that would mark the beginning of America’s conservation movement. I walked around Thoreau’s Walden Pond in deep freshly fallen snow and hiked in Yosemite, reminding myself of John Muir’s idea that: ‘the clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness’.
    The most exciting moment was when I finally climbed Chimborazo, the mountain that had been so elemental to Humboldt’s vision. As I walked up the barren slope, the air was so thin that every step felt like an eternity – a slow pull upward while my legs felt leaden and somehow disconnected from the rest of my body. My admiration for Humboldt grew with every step. He had climbed Chimborazo with an injured foot (and certainly not in walking boots as comfortable and sturdy as mine), loaded with instruments and constantly stopping to take measurements.
    The result of this exploration through landscapes and letters, through thoughts and diaries, is this book. The Invention of Nature is my quest to rediscover Humboldt, and to restore him to his rightful place in the pantheon of nature and science. It’s also a quest to understand why we think as we do today about the natural world.
    1 To this day many German-speaking schools across Latin America hold biannual athletic competitions called Juegos Humboldt – Humboldt Games.

PART I
Departure: Emerging Ideas
    1
    Beginnings
    ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT was born, on 14 September 1769, into a wealthy aristocratic Prussian family who spent their