Book Review: The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

 

I've heard this guys name (Alexander von Humboldt) quite a few times recently, so this prompted me to read this book about him to see what he's all about.

This book covers the entire life and explorations of Alexander from Humboldt, a Prussian researcher and explorer. It also covers some of the aftermaths of his discoveries and eventual death.

Gotta say, despite this being a much longer book than I've recently read (double the length of my average read nowadays), I did finish this one in the span of a day. Partially because I had five hours on the train to spend reading, but partially because it's also a really engaging read. Once I started this book I did not want to put it down. 

Wulf has a very pleasant writing voice and just really managed to tell me this guy's life story in a way that had me entirely engaged. I honestly didn't even really know all that much about him going in, just some vague image of him possibly being an explorer of some kind. Which he is, but also quite a bit more. And this book doesn't just cover his explorations, but thankfully his entire life plus the impact he had on future explorations and science. Which was a nice bonus, I really feel that things would've been lacking if these had not been covered in at least some way or form.

I really don't have many criticisms here. I guess I do wish that Humboldt's exploration to Russia would've been covered a little more elaborately (a significant less amount of time is spent on describing this travel in comparison to his America exploration). The later chapters about other explorers such as Darwin also do feel nice, but they also feel a slight bit out of place when the book prior to that focused solely on Humboldt and his exploits. I do get why these chapters are there; obviously to illustrate how Humboldt impacted science and future travels, but I just feel they could've been implemented a little better, maybe in an epilogue of sorts or something. Because right now we read his entire life's story up until his death, and then we suddenly get a few more chapters which are written about other scientists and explorers, which is a bit of a shift in subject even if related.

Overall still an great read, however. Absolutely do recommend it, it actually got me interested in reading more about natural history.

Rating: 5/5