The Invention of Nature
Alexander von Humboldt's New World
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Narrated by:
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David Drummond
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By:
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Andrea Wulf
About this listen
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infested Siberia. He came up with a radical vision of nature, that it was a complex and interconnected global force and did not exist for man's use alone. Ironically, his ideas have become so accepted and widespread that he has been nearly forgotten.
Now Andrea Wulf brings the man and his achievements back into focus: his investigation of wild environments around the world; his discoveries of similarities between climate zones on different continents; his prediction of human-induced climate change; his remarkable ability to fashion poetic narrative out of scientific observation; and his relationships with iconic figures such as Simón Bolívar and Thomas Jefferson. Wulf examines how his writings inspired other naturalists and poets such as Wordsworth, Darwin, and Goethe, and she makes the compelling case that it was Humboldt's influence on John Muir that led him to his ideas of preservation and that shaped Thoreau's Walden.
Humboldt was the most interdisciplinary of scientists and is the forgotten father of environmentalism. With this brilliantly researched and compellingly written audiobook, she makes clear the myriad, fundamental ways that Humboldt created our understanding of the natural world.
©2015 Andrea Wulf. Recorded by arrangement with Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- A Young Man's Unlikely Path to Walden Pond
- By: Michael Sims
- Narrated by: David Rapkin
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry David Thoreau has long been an intellectual icon and folk hero. In this strikingly original profile, Michael Sims reveals how the bookish, quirky young man evolved into the patron saint of environmentalism and nonviolent activism. Working from 19th-century letters and diaries, Sims charts Henry’s course from his time at Harvard through the years he spent living in a cabin beside Walden Pond. Sims uncovers a previously hidden Thoreau - the rowdy boy reminiscent of Tom Sawyer, the sarcastic college iconoclast, the devoted son who kept imitating his beloved older brother’s choices in life.
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Pleasant surprise
- By Norman Wendth on 10-21-14
By: Michael Sims
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River of the Gods
- Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe—and extend their colonial empires.
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Good book by Millard, narrator ruined it
- By Tally D Lykins on 05-25-22
By: Candice Millard
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The Promise of the Grand Canyon
- John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West
- By: John F. Ross
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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John Wesley Powell’s first descent of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869 counts among the most dramatic chapters in American exploration history. When the Canyon spit out the surviving members of the expedition - starving, battered, and nearly naked - they had accomplished what others thought impossible and finished the exploration of continental America that Lewis and Clark had begun almost 70 years before.
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Parallels
- By Bruce McClenahan on 01-25-19
By: John F. Ross
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Mirage
- Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt
- By: Nina Burleigh
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
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Little more than 200 years ago, only the most reckless or eccentric Europeans had dared traverse the unmapped territory of the modern-day Middle East. Its history and peoples were the subject of much myth and speculation: and no region aroused greater interest than Egypt.
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A lesson in history
- By —- on 01-05-10
By: Nina Burleigh
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The Discoverers
- A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself
- By: Daniel J. Boorstin
- Narrated by: Christopher Cazenove
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Abridged
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Why didn't the Chinese discover America? Why were people so slow to learn the earth goes around the sun? How and why did we begin to think of "species" of plants and animals? How, when, and why did people begin digging in the earth to learn about the past? How did the study of economics begin? These are but a few of the fascinating questions answered by Dr. Boorstin, Librarian of Congress Emeritus.
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One of my Top 10 Fav. Books!
- By shannonnn on 05-09-05
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Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
- John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
- By: Wallace Stegner
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
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Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner recounts the remarkable career of Major John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of the Southwest Indian tribes. This classic work is a penetrating and insightful study of the Powell’s career, from the beginning of the Powell Survey, in which Powell and his men famously became the first to descend the Colorado River, to his eventual expulsion from the Geological Survey.
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History repeats itself.
- By Roy on 09-12-11
By: Wallace Stegner
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The Jesuit and the Skull
- Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man
- By: Amir D. Aczel
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 1929, in a cave near Peking, a group of anthropologists and archaeologists that included a young French Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin uncovered a prehuman skull. The find quickly became known around the world as Peking Man and was acclaimed as the missing link between erect hunting apes and our Cro-Magnon ancestors. It also became a provocative piece of evidence in the roiling debate over creationism versus evolution.
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More skull than Jesuit
- By connie on 10-25-07
By: Amir D. Aczel
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Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher
- The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, Egan's book tells the remarkable untold story behind Edward Curtis's iconic photographs, following him throughout Indian country from desert to rainforest as he struggled to document the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. Even with the backing of Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, it took tremendous perseverance. The undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate.
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STUPENDOUS!
- By Curious Artist Librarian on 10-29-12
By: Timothy Egan
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Gertrude Bell
- Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations
- By: Georgina Howell
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
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She has been called the female Lawrence of Arabia, which, while not inaccurate, fails to give Gertrude Bell her due. She was at one time the most powerful woman in the British Empire: a nation builder, the driving force behind the creation of modern-day Iraq. Born in 1868 into a world of privilege, Bell turned her back on Victorian society, choosing to read history at Oxford and going on to become an archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist, author, poet, photographer, and legendary mountaineer.
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Shattering The Glass Ceiling in Britain
- By Nostromo on 08-05-18
By: Georgina Howell
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The Pioneers
- The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
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The number one New York Times best seller by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story that's "as resonant today as ever" (The Wall Street Journal) - the settling of the Northwest Territory by courageous pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would define our country.
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i would prefer david reading it
- By hooterwah on 05-07-19
By: David McCullough
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What listeners say about The Invention of Nature
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeremy Fairbanks
- 03-03-16
Poignant origin story
A good history of a the rise of the modern way of thinking about nature and its relationship to man. Wulf has clearly researched this exhaustively, and seems to have read every piece of correspondence between Humbolt and his fellow scientists. However, despite effectively depicting the subject's character, enthusiasm, and spirit, this text lacks some of what it describes. I found the final several chapters dragging, although it ends on a very high note with Humbolt's posthumous influence on the great John Muir.
In a sentence, it is far more a description of his effects than of the man himself, Initially presented as an adventurer naturalist, it turns out he spends 90% of his life bouncing around Europe and writing books, which are in turn read by people who we are more familiar with (Darwin, Lyell, Thoreau, Muir). Realistic, but not especially interesting.
At the same time, it serves as an important reminder of how man remains ignorant of his place on the planet. An important message.
Drummond is a good narrator, but at times seems to lack the excitement of the text. In fact, on some words he seems to be imitating Stephen Hawking's [computer's] syllabic pauses, most notable in the pronunciation of the word "nature". As a result...it comes up a lot. So you're reminded of it constantly.
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69 people found this helpful
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- Kaui
- 05-09-17
A polymath extraordinaire!
Any additional comments?
This biography is a complete surprise. As the title suggests, Alexander von Humboldt (yes! inspiration for his eponymous cheese, Humboldt Fog!) kind of invented natural science. However, what I didn't realize, beyond the fact that he was Darwin's idol, was that he was so influential upon Walden, Thoreau, President Jefferson, and one of the original thinkers about global warming, social and economic equality being a key ingredient to peace, and, hang it all, isotherms! As all explorers seem to be, Humboldt was blessed with a vigorous physicality and intellectual capacity that allowed him to scale mountains and synthesize large amounts of information into novel theories. Handsome, vital to almost the last, he was a giant amongst European explorers, thinkers, scientists and discoverers. That he was insecure and an incurable social chatterbox both served and hindered him. For a surprisingly entertaining erudite experience, pick this book up. I really enjoyed it!
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- Jennifer
- 10-27-16
You need to listen to this book!
Listen, learn, and spread the word. This book is a brillant tale of adventure and about the history of conservation and ecology. We all are tied together in Nature and can learn to appreciate Nautre again. Go boldly and triumphantly.
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- Katnat
- 11-10-16
Sublime book
Thoroughly enjoyable and so relevant today. Read like one of humboldts own writing - poetry and science combined. Throw in biographic sketches of explorers, artists, scientists and poets. A fabulous read. I found the narrator's voice a little monotonic but not disturbingly so.
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- Inga's Adventures
- 07-13-16
Amazing how much influence one man can have
I loved this story. Humboldt is a name so many of us know but most know nothing about the man himself. His perspective influenced so many thinkers of the time, including Darwin, Thoreau and Muir. The writing style is a bit stiff but I enjoyed the story.
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- wbiro
- 11-13-17
A Lively and Broad Book
A lively, world-spanning book of a European elite that adds to one's incomplete perspective.
In my case, it was not realizing that the observation of man's negative impact on the environment did not begin with Rachael Carson in 1962, but in 1799 with Humbolt. Also interesting were the post-mortem chapters on his legacy, beginning with Darwin and ending with the man who founded the Sierra Club in 1899.
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- Breanne
- 01-21-17
Inspirational
Amazing to learn how much we have forgotten or have ignored. I am renewing my connection to nature.
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Overall
- Caroline El Sanadi
- 11-22-17
wonderfully informative book
this was a fantastic book about a (tragically) less-known scientist. he was prescient and his contributions to science should render him equal status to Darwin.
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- Aldenbeads
- 07-26-16
Must listen again
Such an amazing time to have lived. So much info, that I'll have to listen again!
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- Craig Bruska
- 01-05-18
Great story
The book tells the story Von Humbolt’s life and the effect on how the world saw the universe verse from Charles Darwin to John Muir.
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