A Longing for Wide and Unknown Things: The Life of Alexander von Humboldt

by Maren Meinhardt

Alexander von Humboldt was the most admired scientist of his day. But the achievements for which he was most celebrated in his lifetime always fell short of perfection. When he climbed the Chimborazo, then believed to be the highest mountain in the world, he did not quite reach the top; he established the existence of the Casiquiare canal, between the great water systems of the Orinoco and the Amazon, but this had been well known to local people; and his magisterial work, Cosmos, was left unfinished. This was no coincidence. Humboldt’s pursuit of an all-encompassing, immersive approach to science was a way of finding limits: of nature and of the scientist’s own self.

A Longing for Wide and Unknown Things portrays a scientific life lived in the era of German Romanticism — a time of radical change, where the focus on the individual placed a new value on feeling, and the pursuit of personal desires. As Humboldt himself admitted, he ‘would have sailed to the remotest South Seas, even if it hadn’t fulfilled any scientific purpose whatever’.

Genres: History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 25, 2018

Reviews

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se enfoca mas on algunas partes de su vida y su viaje que en otras sin razón aparente.

[Omar Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Está interesante. Narra bastantes hechos aunque divaga mucho sobre algunos temas. En general me gusta.

[Antonio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante biografía de Humboldt. Se centra demasiado, creo, en los años de formación y en las relaciones familiares, y fulmina su paso por México y Cuba en dos páginas; los años berlineses tampoco son muy detallados.