ALSO BY ANDREA WULF Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession This Other Eden: Seven Great Gardens and 300 Years of English History (with Emma Gieben-Gamal) THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF Copyright © 2015 by Andrea Wulf All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., Toronto. Simultaneously published in Great Britain by John Murray (Publishers), a Hachette UK Company, London. www.aaknopf.com Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wulf, Andrea. The invention of nature : Alexander von Humboldt’s new world / by Andrea Wulf.—First American Edition. pages cm “THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK”—T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-385-35066-2 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-0-38535067-9 (eBook) 1. Humbolt, Alexander von, 1769–1859. 2. Scientists—Germany—Biography. 3. Naturalists—Germany— Biography. I. Title. Q143.H9W85 2015 509.2—dc23 [B] 2015017505 Cover design by Kelly Blair Maps drawn by Rodney Paull v3.1 To Linnéa (P.o.P.) Close your eyes, prick your ears, and from the softest sound to the wildest noise, from the simplest tone to the highest harmony, from the most violent, passionate scream to the gentlest words of sweet reason, it is by Nature who speaks, revealing her being, her power, her life, and her relatedness so that a blind person, to whom the infinitely visible world is denied, can grasp an infinite vitality in what can be heard. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Contents Cover Other Books by This Author Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Maps Author’s Note Prologue PART I. DEPARTURE: EMERGING IDEAS 1. Beginnings 2. Imagination and Nature: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Humboldt 3. In Search of a Destination PART II. ARRIVAL: COLLECTING IDEAS 4. South America 5. The Llanos and the Orinoco 6. Across the Andes 7. Chimborazo 8. Politics and Nature: Thomas Jefferson and Humboldt PART III. RETURN: SORTING IDEAS 9. Europe 10. Berlin 11. Paris 12. Revolutions and Nature: Simón Bolívar and Humboldt 13. London 14. Going in Circles: Maladie Centrifuge PART IV. INFLUENCE: SPREADING IDEAS 15. Return to Berlin 16. Russia 17. Evolution and Nature: Charles Darwin and Humboldt 18. Humboldt’s Cosmos 19. Poetry, Science and Nature: Henry David Thoreau and Humboldt PART V. NEW WORLDS: EVOLVING IDEAS 20. The Greatest Man Since the Deluge 21. Man and Nature: George Perkins Marsh and Humboldt 22. Art, Ecology and Nature: Ernst Haeckel and Humboldt 23. Preservation and Nature: John Muir and Humboldt Epilogue Acknowledgements Illustration Credits Notes A Note on Humboldt’s Publications Sources and Bibliography Index Illustrations Maps Humboldt’s Journey Across the Americas, 1799–1804 Humboldt’s Journey through Venezuela, 1800 Humboldt’s Journey Across Russia, 1829