The Humboldt Current, by Aaron Sachs
Anyone else reading this gem? The book is a reflection on the intellectual impact by one Alexander Von Humboldt on American explorers and scientific thought during the 19th century and into modern day. Humboldt, a German, spent only a month in the US, mostly speaking with Jefferson who shared many of the same ideas as Humblodt regarding the imprtance of thoroughly investigating our natural world for the wonders and usefeul knowledge it has to offer the human population.
Humboldt's ultimate mission was to fuse art and science in his work exploring the globe from Cotapaxi to the Mongolian Steppe. Humboldt is also credited as being the first man to explain his unified theory of all of nature: stars to soil and back up to the plants that grow out in one environment to the next.
Most of the early 19th century American Explorers of the West inclusing JN Reynolds, Clarence King, and Whitney were widely influenced by Humboldt's writings. The sad part is, they did not respect and honor his tradition of seeing value in all mankind, "savages" and "primitives" included.
Humbolt was ashamed and horrified by the US slavery system and thought for such an enlightened and vast new nation that the slavery system marred what hope we had to succeed and truly be a new state of liberty.
Although Humboldt died in the mid-19th century, Sachs does an excellent job tracing his influence on American explorers and the Enlightened thinkers including Walden and Emerson. The book is a comprehensively researched, eloquent tour through the early days of the US Geological Survey topogrpahical missions through the 40th parallel and the entire Sierra Range, as well as a heated look into Washington politics that no doubt tried to stifle these important missions to understand our own daunting environment and change their mission to that of mining prospectus and general economic advantage. As Sachs points out, both words "economy" and "ecology" both come from the Greek root for "House" reminding us that no matter what, we all live under the same roof.
I encourage anyone interested in the majestic Western US landscape and the roots of its awe and myth read this book.
