Alexander Von Humboldt Popular Books

Alexander Von Humboldt Biography & Facts

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in the Americas, exploring and describing them for the first time from a non-Spanish European scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in several volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multivolume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity, which introduced concepts of ecology leading to ideas of environmentalism. In 1800, and again in 1831, he described scientifically, on the basis of observations generated during his travels, local impacts of development causing human-induced climate change.Humboldt is seen as "the father of ecology" and "the father of environmentalism". Early life, family and education Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin in Prussia on 14 September 1769. He was baptized as a baby in the Lutheran faith, with the Duke of Brunswick serving as godfather.Humboldt's father, Alexander Georg von Humboldt, belonged to a prominent Pomeranian family. Although not one of the titled gentry, he was a major in the Prussian Army, who had served with the Duke of Brunswick. At age 42, Alexander Georg was rewarded for his services in the Seven Years' War with the post of royal chamberlain. He profited from the contract to lease state lotteries and tobacco sales.He first married the daughter of Prussian General Adjutant Schweder. In 1766, Alexander Georg married Maria Elisabeth Colomb, a well-educated woman and widow of Baron Hollwede, with whom she had a son. Alexander Georg and Maria Elisabeth had three children: a daughter, who died young, and then two sons, Wilhelm and Alexander. Her first-born son, Wilhelm and Alexander's half-brother, was something of a ne'er do well, not often mentioned in the family history.Alexander Georg died in 1779, leaving the brothers Humboldt in the care of their emotionally distant mother. She had high ambitions for Alexander and his older brother Wilhelm, hiring excellent tutors, who were Enlightenment thinkers, including Kantian physician Marcus Herz and botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow, who became one of the most important botanists in Germany. Humboldt's mother expected them to become civil servants of the Prussian state. The money left to Alexander's mother by Baron Holwede became instrumental in funding Alexander's explorations after her death; contributing more than 70% of his private income. Due to his youthful penchant for collecting and labeling plants, shells, and insects, Alexander received the playful title of "the little apothecary". Marked for a political career, Alexander studied finance for six months in 1787 at the University of Frankfurt (Oder), which his mother might have chosen less for its academic excellence than its closeness to their home in Berlin. On 25 April 1789, he matriculated at the University of Göttingen, then known for the lectures of C. G. Heyne and anatomist J. F. Blumenbach. His brother Wilhelm was already a student at Göttingen, but they did not interact much, since their intellectual interests were quite different. His vast and varied interests were by this time fully developed.At the University of Göttingen, Humboldt met Steven Jan van Geuns, a Dutch medical student, with whom he travelled to the Rhine in the fall of 1789. In Mainz, they met Georg Forster, a naturalist who had been with Captain James Cook on his second voyage. Humboldt's scientific excursion resulted in his 1790 treatise Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Brunswick, 1790) (Mineralogic Observations on Several Basalts on the River Rhine). The following year, 1790, Humboldt returned to Mainz to embark with Forster on a journey to England, Humboldt's first sea voyage, the Netherlands, and France. In England, he met Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, who had travelled with Captain Cook; Banks showed Humboldt his huge herbarium, with specimens of the South Sea tropics. The scientific friendship between Banks and Humboldt lasted until Banks's death in 1820, and the two shared botanical specimens for study. Banks also mobilized his scientific contacts in later years to aid Humboldt's work.Humboldt's passion for travel was of long standing. He devoted to prepare himself as a scientific explorer. With this emphasis, he studied commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg, geology at Freiberg School of Mines in 1791 under A.G. Werner, leader of the Neptunist school of geology; from anatomy at Jena under J.C. Loder; and astronomy and the use of scientific instruments under F.X. von Zach and J.G. Köhler. At Freiberg, he met a number of men who were to prove important to him in his later career, including Spaniard Manuel del Río, who became director of the School of Mines the crown established in Mexico; Christian Leopold von Buch, who became a regional geologist; and, most importantly, Carl Freiesleben, who became Humboldt's tutor and close friend. During this period, his brother Wilhelm married, but Alexander did not attend the nuptials. Travels and work in Europe Humboldt graduated from the Freiberg School of Mines in 1792 and was appointed to a Prussian government position in the Department of Mines as an inspector in Bayreuth and the Fichtel Mountains. Humboldt was excellent at his job, with production of gold ore in his first year outstripping the previous eight years. During his period as a mine inspector, Humboldt demonstrated his deep concern for the men laboring in the mines. He opened a free school for miners, paid for out of his own pocket, which became an unchartered government training school for labor. He also sought to establish an emergency relief fund for miners, aiding them following accidents.Humboldt's researches into the vegetation of the mines of Freiberg led to the publication in Latin (1793) of his Florae Fribergensis, accedunt Aphorismi ex Doctrina, Physiologiae Chemicae Plantarum, which was a compendium of his botanical researches. That publication brought him to the attention of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who had met Humboldt at the family home when Alexander was a boy, but .... Discover the Alexander Von Humboldt popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Alexander Von Humboldt books.

Best Seller Alexander Von Humboldt Books of 2024

  • The Invention of Nature synopsis, comments

    The Invention of Nature

    Andrea Wulf

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER A biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural worldand in the process created modern en...

  • Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara

    In this book from the critically acclaimed, multimillioncopy bestselling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the life of Alexander von Humboldt, the botanist and adventurer....

  • Letters of Alexander von Humboldt to Varnhagen von Ense. synopsis, comments

    Letters of Alexander von Humboldt to Varnhagen von Ense.

    Alexander von Humboldt

    With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world. Who are w...

  • Werke von Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Werke von Alexander von Humboldt

    Alexander von Humboldt

    4 Werke von Alexander von Humboldt Deutscher Naturforscher und Geographer (17691859) Dieser Band enthält eine Sammlung von 4 Werken von Alexander von Humboldt. Ein dynamisches Inha...

  • Works of Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Works of Alexander von Humboldt

    Alexander von Humboldt

    4 works of Alexander von Humboldt Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister (17691859) This ebook presents a collection of 4 wo...

  • Los hermanos Alexander y Wilhelm von Humboldt en Colombia synopsis, comments

    Los hermanos Alexander y Wilhelm von Humboldt en Colombia

    Sven Werkmeister

    Este libro sigue las huellas de los dos hermanos Alexander y Wilhelm von Humboldt en la Nueva Granada y actual Colombia, para mostrar los caminos históricos de cooperación e interc...

  • Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-1804, volume 1 of 3 synopsis, comments

    Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-1804, volume 1 of 3

    Alexander von Humboldt

    According to Wikipedia: "Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt (September 14, 1769 – May 6, 1859) was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brothe...

  • The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt

    Andrea Wulf & Lillian Melcher

    A breathtakingly illustrated and brilliantly evocative recounting of Alexander Von Humboldt's fiveyear expedition in South Americafrom the author of Magnificent Rebels and the New ...

  • Alexander von Humboldt Zwischen Europa und Amerika synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt Zwischen Europa und Amerika

    Sebastian Krumpel

    Anhand einer inhaltlichen Untersuchung der französischen fünfbändigen Oktavausgabe seines Essai politique sur le royaume de la NouvelleEspagne (1811), unter besonderer Berücksichti...

  • Beinahe beste Freunde. Alexander von Humboldt und Johann Wolfgang von Goethe synopsis, comments

    Beinahe beste Freunde. Alexander von Humboldt und Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    Dieter Strauss

    Der Band berichtet über reale Reisen, Ansichten und Anekdoten von Alexander von Humboldt und Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, denen der Erzähler eine literarische Form gibt, die zugleic...

  • The Great Naturalists synopsis, comments

    The Great Naturalists

    Robert Huxley

    The story of natural history as seen through the lives, observations, and discoveries of the world’s greatest naturalists.“How the sciences of geology, biology, ecology and paleont...

  • Georg Forster, Johann Gottfried Seume, Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Georg Forster, Johann Gottfried Seume, Alexander von Humboldt

    Christian Preischl

    Diese Arbeit zieht einen Vergleich zwischen drei Werken: Georg Forsters «Reise um die Welt», Johann Gottfried Seumes «Spaziergang nach Syrakus» und Alexander von Humboldts «Die Rei...

  • Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Thomas Richter

    Rowohlt EBook MonographieAlexander von Humboldt hat als Naturforscher, Weltreisender und Schriftsteller Weltruhm erlangt. Seit Daniel Kehlmanns Bestseller «Die Vermessung der Welt»...

  • Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Gregor C. Falk, Manfred R. Strecker & Simon Schneider

    This book aims to view and to understand Alexander von Humboldt from different perspectives and in varying disciplinary contexts. His contributions addressed numerous topics in the...

  • Alexander von Humboldt-Handbuch synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt-Handbuch

    Ottmar Ette

    Alexander von Humboldt ist seit dem Ausgang des 20. Jahrhunderts in den unterschiedlichsten Wissensbereichen und Wissenschaftsfeldern zu einer bedeutenden Figur im öffentlichen Dis...

  • Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-1804, volume 2 of 3 synopsis, comments

    Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Years 1799-1804, volume 2 of 3

    Alexander von Humboldt

    According to Wikipedia: "Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt (September 14, 1769 – May 6, 1859) was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother...

  • Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Maren Meinhardt

    Humboldt fue científico, viajero, inventor y llegó a ser una de las personas más admiradas de su época. Heredero de la Ilustración, abandonó su Berlín natal guiado por sus inquietu...

  • Brave Companions synopsis, comments

    Brave Companions

    David McCullough

    From Alexander von Humboldt to Charles and Anne Lindbergh, these are stories of people of great vision and daring whose achievements continue to inspire us today, brilliantly told ...

  • The Birds That Audubon Missed synopsis, comments

    The Birds That Audubon Missed

    Kenn Kaufman

    Renowned naturalist Kenn Kaufman examines the scientific discoveries of John James Audubon and his artistic and ornithologist peers to show how what they saw (and what they missed)...

  • Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Danica Novgorodoff

    Budding botanists, growing geologists, and early explorers will dive into this picture book biography about the father of ecology, Alexander von Humboldt. The captivating prose and...

  • Die Vermessung der Welt synopsis, comments

    Die Vermessung der Welt

    Daniel Kehlmann

    «Eine literarische Sensation.» (Guardian)Mit hintergründigem Humor schildert Daniel Kehlmann das Leben zweier Genies: Alexander von Humboldt und Carl Friedrich Gauß. Er beschreibt ...

  • Alexander von Humboldt und die Sklaverei auf Kuba synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt und die Sklaverei auf Kuba

    Tamara Gottschalk

    Alexander von Humboldt, geboren 1769 in Berlin, zählt zu den berühmtesten Naturforschern und das nicht nur hierzulande. Auf seinen Forschungsreisen gelangte er über Europa hinaus n...

  • Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Dorothee Nolte

    Universalgelehrter und Lästermaul – amüsante Episoden über Alexander von Humboldt Alexander von Humboldt, der preußische Adlige, der adligen Dünkel verachtete, war getrieben von un...

  • Alexander von Humboldt und die Erfindung der Natur synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt und die Erfindung der Natur

    Andrea Wulf

    Was hat Alexander von Humboldt, der vor mehr als 150 Jahren starb, mit Klimawandel und Nachhaltigkeit zu tun? Der Naturforscher und Universalgelehrte, nach dem nicht nur unzählige ...

  • Zwischen Projektion und Massaker. Koloniale Begegnungen bei Alexander von Humboldt, Alejo Carpentier und Ruggero Deodato synopsis, comments

    Zwischen Projektion und Massaker. Koloniale Begegnungen bei Alexander von Humboldt, Alejo Carpentier und Ruggero Deodato

    Nicolai Bühnemann

    Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2008 im Fachbereich Germanistik Komparatistik, Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Im ersten Teil...

  • The Great Journeys in History synopsis, comments

    The Great Journeys in History

    Robin Hanbury-Tenison

    A lively collection of the adventurous stories of the greatest explorers in history.Ferdinand Magellan, Genghis Khan, Thor Heyerdahl, Amelia Earhart, and Neil Armstrong: these are ...

  • Alexander von Humboldt - Ansichten der Natur synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt - Ansichten der Natur

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Die »Ansichten der Natur« bieten eine Zusammenfassung von Alexander von Humboldts naturwissenschaftlicher Weltsicht. Der Band basiert auf Reisetagebüchern, aus denen Alexander von ...

  • Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara

    In this book from the critically acclaimed, multimillioncopy bestselling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the life of Alexander von Humboldt, the botanist and adventurer....

  • Das Modell der EnergieAgentur Alexander-von-Humboldt Schule e. V. synopsis, comments

    Das Modell der EnergieAgentur Alexander-von-Humboldt Schule e. V.

    Maximilian Plenert

    Aufgabe dieser Arbeit ist es, die wichtigsten Aspekte der Energieagentur AlexandervonHumboldt Schule e. V. und meine Aktivität als Mitglied seit 1995 vorzustellen. Sie soll Außenst...

  • Alexander von Humboldt synopsis, comments

    Alexander von Humboldt

    Rüdiger Schaper

    Von Tegel in die Welt und zurück: Humboldt, Preuße und EntdeckerVon Preußen in die Welt: Aus der Perspektive der letzten Jahrzehnte, die Humboldt, nach seinen Entdeckerjahren in Üb...