The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America

by Laura Dassow Walls

Explorer, scientist, writer, and humanist, Alexander von Humboldt was the most famous intellectual of the age that began with Napoleon and ended with Darwin. With Cosmos , the book that crowned his career, Humboldt offered to the world his vision of humans and nature as integrated halves of a single whole. In it, Humboldt espoused the idea that, while the universe of nature exists apart from human purpose, its beauty and order, the very idea of the whole it composes, are human cosmos comes into being in the dance of world and mind, subject and object, science and poetry. Humboldt’s science laid the foundations for ecology and inspired the theories of his most important scientific disciple, Charles Darwin. In the United States, his ideas shaped the work of Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, and Whitman. They helped spark the American environmental movement through followers like John Muir and George Perkins Marsh. And they even bolstered efforts to free the slaves and honor the rights of Indians. Laura Dassow Walls here traces Humboldt’s ideas for Cosmos to his 1799 journey to the Americas, where he first experienced the diversity of nature and of the world’s peoples—and envisioned a new cosmopolitanism that would link ideas, disciplines, and nations into a global web of knowledge and cultures. In reclaiming Humboldt’s transcultural and transdisciplinary project, Walls situates America in a lively and contested field of ideas, actions, and interests, and reaches beyond to a new worldview that integrates the natural and social sciences, the arts, and the humanities. To the end of his life, Humboldt called himself “half an American,” but ironically his legacy has largely faded in the United States. The Passage to Cosmos will reintroduce this seminal thinker to a new audience and return America to its rightful place in the story of his life, work, and enduring legacy.

Genres: History, Travel, Science, Biography, Nonfiction

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Matt Heavner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fairly densely written, academic, "ecocrit" style book. Perhaps it was over-reaching in its "Humboldt's impact." But I really enjoyed the intellectual romp through the 1800s. Just about everyone was tied in (perhaps a bit liberally or even "stretched-to-fit"). But I do agree with the thesis that Humboldt had an amazing impact and is unjustifiably "forgotten" by history. The intellectual ties with Jefferson, Franklin, Muir, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, continental thought, more, and even impacts into modern thought (relativity, quantum, climate, ecocrticism) was amazing and a bit hard to believe.. But if even just half of it is "true" (and I think much more than half is "true") -- wow! The author spends a good bit of text rescuing Humboldt from "mis-credited" racism and a few pages considering "why is Humboldt forgotten".

There were several "aha" moments reading this.. I liked:

p 314: "Or as Whitman wrote, "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." Perhaps the United States absorbed Humboldt so completely that he has disappeared from view, though he is everywhere one looks."

I liked the theme of subjective/objective and the conception of science. It wasn't a quick read, but overall, I found this to be a very enjoyable read (while recognizing that at times it appeared to be over-reaching in synthesis of Humboldt and everything else.

[James F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walls gives an analysis of the work, ideas and influence of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), organized around the concept of Kosmos. Essentially, the idea of von Humboldt was that science should not be simply about finding laws or principles from which phenomena could be derived, but should be about studying the phenomena themselves in their multiplicity, historical development and interconnections; in other words, a view of science that is more modeled on historical geology, palaeontolgy or linguistics than on physics. The modern science of ecology is basically Humboldtian. What is perhaps more interesting was his advanced social thought. von Humboldt was not only a consistent abolitionist who took every opportunity to attack slavery at a time when there was almost no abolitionist movement, but went farther than most abolitionists and argued for the equality of all nations and peoples -- he rejected the concept of "race" in a biological sense. Even more unusually, he argued for the rights of native Americans in both North and South America; he supported the Creole revolutions against Spain, and was an influence on Bolivar, but also predicted correctly that the independent nations of South America would not succeed unless they incorporated the Indian populations on a basis of equality. He was the first to point to the dangers of deforestation and warn about human induced climate change. (I mentioned these aspects in my review of the Personal Narrative last year, but Walls documents them throughout his work.) He was an important influence not only on scientists and explorers, but also on literature and art -- Walls discusses his influence on Emerson, Thoreau, Melville and Poe and the painter Frederick Church among others. She then asks why he has been so forgotten in the U.S. (though not in South America); she identifies a number of possible causes, beginning with the conscious or unconscious falsification of his legacy by followers who were racists (e.g. Louis Agassiz) or who misinterpreted the idea of Kosmos in a religious sense; the growing specialization and positivism of later nineteenth century science, which was the opposite of his approach; the fact that he was overshadowed by Darwin (who was highly influenced by von Humboldt) and so forth. She argues that the most important factor though was the xenophobia of Americans toward Germans after German unification and especially during and after World War I. She discusses the rediscovery of Humboldtian science by Franz Boas in anthropology and later by the ecology movement. This book covers a lot of material; my only criticism would be that it goes into too much detail on some figures who were only marginally influenced by von Humboldt.

[David Spanagel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a masterful book, conveying not only an extraordinary life in science but an exceptional person's quest to transform society to fulfill the Enlightenment dream.

[Bob Gustafson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best biography I have ever read. It begins with dates and deeds and does so well. Then there is an intermezzo chapter, which leads the balance of this book which is about Humboldt's impact on other people and his place in history.
There are copius notes and many of the books on my wish list were referred to in Passage to Cosmos.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greg, this is one non fiction you might enjoy