Description
Book SynopsisAlexander von Humboldt explored the Spanish Empire on the verge of its collapse. He is the most significant German travel writer and the most important mediator between Europe and the Americas of the nineteenth century. His works integrated knowledge from two dozen domains.
Trade Review “[The essays] reflect the amazing breadth of interests of the German scientist, emphasizing in particular his travels in and commentary (scientific and political) on South America. The[y] cover a period of more than 200 years and have relevance not only for historians of science, but also for scholars of German and French literature, Latin American studies, travel literature, philosophy, and history.” · Choice
“There is no doubt that these volumes combine the most comprehensive collection of texts for the colorful and shifting history of Humboldt's fame...By laboriously assembling, and in many cases translating, an impressive number of texts from remote corners of libraries and collections, Clark and Lubrich have provided a valuable service to scholars and the general public. In this process they have filled a neglected space in the literature about Humboldt. They have pointed to the issues of colonialism and integrated Latin American voices and into the dialogue about Humboldt, a dialogue that concerns primarily Latin America. the world that Humboldt treated so exhaustively in histwenty-nine volumes. “ · Yearbook of German-American Studies
Table of Contents List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Editorial method
Introduction: Analyzing Humboldt
Chapter 1. Letter to Christian Gottfried Körner 1797
Friedrich Schiller
Chapter 2. Thoughts on the Principal Events of the French Revolution 1817
Germaine de Staël
Chapter 3. On Monsieur de Humboldt’s Voyage 1820
François-René Chateaubriand
Chapter 4. Conversations with Goethe 1827
Johann Peter Eckermann
Chapter 5. Thoughts on Modern Literature 1840
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Chapter 6. Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism 1845
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Chapter 7. Aesthetics or The Science of Beauty 1847
Friedrich Theodor Vischer
Chapter 8. The Napoleon of Science 1850
Henry Theodore Tuckerman
Chapter 9. Aesthetics of the Ugly 1853
Karl Rosenkranz
Chapter 10. Eulogy 1859
Louis Agassiz
Chapter 11. Letter to Ludmilla Assing 1860
Gottfried Keller
Chapter 12. The Culture of the Renaissance in Italy 1860
Jacob Burckhardt
Chapter 13. Walking 1862
Henry David Thoreau
Chapter 14. The True Character of Humboldt 1869
Karl Heinzen
Chapter 15. The Descent of Man 1871
Charles Darwin
Chapter 16. Honoré de Balzac 1875
Henry James
Chapter 17. The Shortcomings of the Style 1877
Friedrich Nietzsche
Chapter 18. Rebellion in the Backland 1902
Euclides da Cunha
Chapter 19. Vision of Anáhuac (1519) 1915
Alfonso Reyes
Chapter 20. The Dry Putsch 1922
Kurt Tucholsky
Chapter 21. In the Steps of Humboldt 1923
José Antonio Ramos Sucre
Chapter 22. The German as a Human Symptom 1923
Robert Musil
Chapter 23. Result of Perspectives 1930
Gottfried Benn
Chapter 24. Introduction to the “Political Essay on the Island of Cuba” 1930
Fernando Ortiz
Chapter 25. Commemoration of Alexander von Humboldt 1934
Karl Blasche
Chapter 26. Cuban Counterpoint. Tobacco and Sugar 1940
Fernando Ortiz
Chapter 27. Humboldt, Political and Private 1942
Egon Erwin Kisch
Chapter 28. The Scientific Conquest 1942
Egon Erwin Kisch
Chapter 29. The Dispute of the New World 1955
Antonello Gerbi
Chapter 30. Memory of Humboldt 1958
José Lezama Lima
Chapter 31. The Principle of Hope 1959
Ernst Bloch
Chapter 32. The Invention of America 1961
Edmundo O’Gorman
Chapter 33. Preliminary Study to the “Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain” 1965
Juan A. Ortega y Medina
Chapter 34. The City of Columns 1970
Alejo Carpentier
Chapter 35. Humboldt and the Rehabilitation of a Continent 1970
Hugo Loetscher
Chapter 36. LSD: My Problem Child 1979
Albert Hofmann
Chapter 37. The Memory of Humboldt Lives in the Peoples’ Struggle 1981
Erich Honecker
Chapter 38. A Book on Nature as a Book of Nature 1981
Hans Blumenberg
Chapter 39. Message from the Horsehead 1981
Peter Schneider
Chapter 40. Blackholes of Historiography 1989
Peter Hacks
Chapter 41. No One Wanders under Palm Trees Unpunished. Goethe and Humboldt 1991
Hans Christoph Buch
Chapter 42. Alexander von Humboldt and the Reinvention of America 1992
Mary Louise Pratt
Chapter 43. 'The Second Columbus?’ 1995
Eoin Bourke
Chapter 44. The German Columbus 1997
Susanne Zantop
Chapter 45. The Graves of the Humboldts 1998
Hans Blumenberg
Chapter 46. Like Bronze Statues of Antiquity 2000
Oliver Lubrich
Chapter 47. Walking Backward to the Future 2000
Benigno Trigo
Chapter 48. Concepts of Culture on the Orinoco 2002
Rex Clark
Chapter 49. The Art of Travel 2002
Alain de Botton
Chapter 50. Opening of the Humboldt Exhibit in Madrid 2005
Kerstin Müller
Source Bibliography
Index
