Alexander von Humboldt: A Concise Biography

This competent biography from Daum (Kennedy in Berlin), a history professor at SUNY Buffalo, chronicles the life of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), a “globetrotting naturalist, multifaceted scientist, and international celebrity.” Born in Prussia to aristocratic parents, Humboldt studied at four institutions of higher learning before dropping out to become a mine inspector. Inheriting a small fortune after his mother’s death in 1796, Humboldt used the money to travel across Europe and in 1799 secured a spot on a Spanish scientific expedition to the Americas, where his exposure to the horrific enslavement of African and Indigenous people turned him into a critic of slavery. Daum explains that though Humboldt never made “a single game-changing discovery,” his ideas about the interconnectedness of the natural world proved an enduring influence on the international scientific community. The key virtue of this biography is its concision, and Daum does an admirable job of sorting through Humboldt’s numerous contradictions. For instance, he praises Humboldt’s sympathetic reports on Indigenous cultures for challenging Spain’s claim to have introduced civilization to the Americas, but criticizes the scientist for prioritizing his own interests over native peoples’ (Humboldt once removed skulls from a burial site over the “protests of his native companions”). This gets the job done. (Oct.)