the invention of nature the adventures of alexander von humboldt

Contemporaries spoke of him as second in fame only to Napoleon. Or was it our own willful, unbridled self-delusion? Doubt vs. The Invention of Nature reveals the extraordinary life of the visionary German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) and how he created the way we. Humboldt predicted human-induced climate change as early as 1800, and The Invention of Nature traces his ideas as they go on to revolutionize and shape science. Alexander von Humboldt was the pre-eminent scientist of his time. As much as our willingness to believe in the constant rise felled us, as much as our eagerness to conquer risk opened us up to more risk, as much as Greenspan stood by as Wall Street turned itself into Las Vegas, there was also Greece, and Iceland, and Nick Leeson, who took down Barings, and Brian Hunter, who tanked Amaranth, and Jérôme Kerviel and every other rogue trader who thought he-and it was always a he-could reverse his gut-churning, self-induced free fall with one swift, lucky strike it was rising oil prices, global inflation, easy credit, the cowardice of Moody’s, the growing chasm of income inequality, the dot com boom and bust, the Fed’s rejection of regulation, the acceptance of “too big to fail,” the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the feast of subprime debt it was Clinton and Bush the second and senators vacationing with banking industry lobbyists, the Kobe earthquake, an infatuation with financial innovation, the forgettable Hank Paulson, the delicious hubris of ten, twenty, thirty times leverage, and, at the bottom of it, our own vicious, lingering self-doubt.

Seeing the constellation of the Southern Cross for the first time was his childhood dream come true. Before we even got to the third one, we were down and done. The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science By Andrea Wulf London John Murray 2015 474 pp. In the summer of 1799, when they finally set out for South America on the Spanish frigate Pizarro, Humboldt noted in his diary that he was in a good mood, as befits the beginning of a great work.

The invention of nature the adventures of alexander von humboldt