Review of The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, by Andrea Wulf

The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt by Andrea Wulf

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I loved this fascinating work of graphic nonfiction, which presents the scientific expeditions of Alexander von Humboldt and the botanist Bonpland in South America and Mexico in 1799-1804. Wonderful illustrations by Lillian Melcher, along with a collage of plant specimens, maps, drawings, and notes from the expedition, bring the voyage alive. We share in the hardships of cold temperatures and thin air as the small group climbs the great volcanoes of South America, including Cotopaxi and Chimborazo in Ecuador; and the insect bites, sweltering heat and rain in the Amazon basin. Brilliant colors of tropical blooms alternate with sepia tones, and dark washes flecked with rain, waves, and stars. Speech bubbles create lively exchanges among the explorers, while hand-printed text evokes Humboldt’s written notes and observations. Wulf mixes in humor and gentle playfulness about Humboldt’s intellectual vanity, his indifference to danger, and his obsessive determination to climb all available volcanoes, using instruments to measure data such as temperature, altitude, and magnetism, and sketching the interesting things they encounter. We also share in the friendship and loyalty among this small group of travelers, including handsome young Carlos Montúfar, who joins them in Quito, and a servant named José, who carries the precious barometer. Wulf’s layered narrative captures the immediacy of the expeditions, the reflections of an elderly Humboldt on his life’s work, and the network of connections between Humboldt’s conceptions of nature and those of contemporary and later thinkers like John Muir, Charles Darwin, and James Madison. She illuminates the revolutionary aspect of his observations on nature as a unified whole, rather than a series of classifications; as well as his early concerns about deforestation and human impact on the environment. “I see nature as a global force – an interconnected whole.” Thanks to his exacting records collected on Mt Chimborazo, climate scientists some 200 years later were able to determine that “the plants have moved 1,500 feet upward since Humboldt’s time.” Humboldt was also fascinated by the remnants of ancient cultures like the Incas and Aztecs, whose sculptures and hieroglyphs grace the pages of this book. Feted and world-famous in his time, Wulf’s graphic book—and her 2015 study on Humboldt, The Invention of Nature—highlight Humboldt’s prominence as an environmental theorist and natural scientist.



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