Volume 1 of this critical edition includes a note on the text from the
Humboldt in English team, an introduction by editors Vera M. Kutzinski
and Ottmar Ette, a preface to the first edition by Alexander von
Humboldt, and the translation of Volumes 1 and 2 of Humboldt's Essai
politique sur le royaume de de Nouvelle Espagne from 1825 to 1827.
Alexander von Humboldt was the most celebrated modern chronicler of
North and South America and the Caribbean, and this translation of his
essay on New Spain--the first modern regional economic and political
geography--covers his travels across today's Mexico in 1803-1804. The
work canvases natural-scientific and cultural-scientific objects alike,
combining the results of fieldwork with archival research and expert
testimony.
To show how people, plants, animals, goods, and ideas moved across the
globe, Humboldt wrote in a variety of styles, bending and reshaping
familiar writerly conventions to keep readers attentive to new inputs.
Above all, he wanted his readers to be open-minded when confronted with
cultural and other differences in the Americas. Fueled by his
comparative global perspective on politics, economics, and science, he
used his writing to support Latin American independence and condemn
slavery and other forms of colonial exploitation. It is these voluminous
and innovative writings on the New World that made Humboldt the
undisputed father of modern geography, early American studies,
transatlantic cultural history, and environmental studies.
This two-volume critical edition--the third installment in the Alexander
von Humboldt in English series--is based on the full text, including all
footnotes, tables, and maps, of the second, revised French edition of
Essai politique sur le royaume de de Nouvelle Espagne from 1825 to
1827, which has never been translated into English before. Extensive
annotations and full-color atlases are available on the series website.
