- ホーム
- > 洋書
- > 英文書
- > Biography / Autobiography
基本説明
アレクサンダー・フォン・フンボルト。
18世紀のドイツ(当時はプロイセン王国)に生まれ、博物学者、地理学者、探検家として知られた彼の名にちなんだ学名は多く、中でもにフンボルトペンギンはおなじみです。
チャールズ・ダーウィンのビーグル号航海やジュール・ヴェルヌの小説「海底二万里」などはどれもフンボルトの影響を受けたと言われています。
忘れられつつある彼の功績をまとめた本書は2016年英国王立協会の"Insight Investment Science Book Prize"を受賞しました。(2016/11/22)
Full Description
WINNER OF THE 2015 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD
WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2016
'A thrilling adventure story' Bill Bryson
'Dazzling' Literary Review
'Brilliant' Sunday Express
'Extraordinary and gripping' New Scientist
'A superb biography' The Economist
'An exhilarating armchair voyage' GILES MILTON, Mail on Sunday
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is the great lost scientist - more things are named after him than anyone else. There are towns, rivers, mountain ranges, the ocean current that runs along the South American coast, there's a penguin, a giant squid - even the Mare Humboldtianum on the moon.
His colourful adventures read like something out of a Boy's Own story: Humboldt explored deep into the rainforest, climbed the world's highest volcanoes and inspired princes and presidents, scientists and poets alike. Napoleon was jealous of him; Simon Bolívar's revolution was fuelled by his ideas; Darwin set sail on the Beagle because of Humboldt; and Jules Verne's Captain Nemo owned all his many books. He simply was, as one contemporary put it, 'the greatest man since the Deluge'.
Taking us on a fantastic voyage in his footsteps - racing across anthrax-infected Russia or mapping tropical rivers alive with crocodiles - Andrea Wulf shows why his life and ideas remain so important today. 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, conservation, nature writing, politics, art and the theory of evolution. He wanted to know and understand everything and his way of thinking was so far ahead of his time that it's only coming into its own now. Alexander von Humboldt really did invent the way we see nature.