While the influence of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) looms large
over the natural sciences, his legacy reaches far beyond the field
notebooks of naturalists. Humboldt's 1799-1804 research expedition to
Central and South America with botanist Aimé Bonpland not only set the
course for the great scientific surveys of the nineteenth century, but
also served as the raw material for his many volumes--works of both
scientific rigor and aesthetic beauty that inspired such essayists and
artists as Emerson, Goethe, Thoreau, Poe, and Frederic Edwin Church.
Views of Nature, or Ansichten der Natur, was Humboldt's best-known
and most influential work--and his personal favorite. While the essays
that comprise it are themselves remarkable as innovative, early pieces
of nature writing--they were cited by Thoreau as a model for his own
work--the book's extensive endnotes incorporate some of Humboldt's most
beautiful prose and mature thinking on vegetation structure, its origins
in climate patterns, and its implications for the arts. Written for both
a literary and a scientific audience, Views of Nature was translated
into English (twice), Spanish, and French in the nineteenth century, and
it was read widely in Europe and the Americas. But in contrast to many
of Humboldt's more technical works, Views of Nature has been
unavailable in English for more than one hundred years. Largely
neglected in the United States during the twentieth century, Humboldt's
contributions to the humanities and the sciences are now undergoing a
revival to which this new translation will be a critical contribution.
