Description
Book SynopsisAlexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is famous for his work in physical geography, botanical geography, and climatology, and his role as a popularizer of the sciences. This volume traces Humboldt's biographical identities through Germany's collective past to shed light on the historical instability of our scientists.
Trade Review"Rupke's study... will doubtless become a standard reference for the Humboldt industry and for writers of scientific metabiographies to come." - Isis "Engaging.... Rupke's meticulous analysis is fascinating on many scores." - Times Higher Education Supplement "A study born of considerable scholarship and one with important methodological implications for historians of geography." - Charles W. J. Withers, Progress in Human Geography "Rupke is right to draw attention to the fact that shifting biographical traditions make one person have many lives, and his metabiography helps us to appreciate the historical instability of any scientific life, not just one as complex as Humboldt's.... Rupke has given us a Humboldt just right for our own less certain and more self-conscious times - fractured, multiple and unstable." - Steven Shapin, Nature"
