Alexander von Humboldt and the Emergence of the Modern World

FAIN: FB-57867-14

Andreas W. Daum
SUNY Research Foundation, Buffalo State College (Buffalo, NY 14222-1004)

My book project features the world-renowned naturalist, traveler, and scholar Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). It situates Humboldt's life and oeuvre in the context of the emergence of the modern world between circa 1760 and 1860. Humboldt lived and articulated, so my study argues, the dramatic transformations that changed the European and Atlantic worlds during this seminal period. He made a difference in mapping the world, promoting inter-cultural dialogue, and cultivating a particular style of observation that blended natural history and human history. By using a biographical prism to analyze the historical processes that generated the modern world, this project offers a novel contribution to Atlantic and European history as well as the history of knowledge and civil society in a transnational perspective. It speaks to scholars and students across the disciplines as well as to a general audience.

Associated Products

German Naturalists in the Pacific around 1800: Entanglement, Autonomy, and a Transnational Culture of Expertise (Book Section)
Title: German Naturalists in the Pacific around 1800: Entanglement, Autonomy, and a Transnational Culture of Expertise
Author: Andreas W. Daum
Editor: Hartmut Berghoff, Frank Biess, Ulrike Strasser
Abstract: Although no German nation-state existed around 1800, German-speaking naturalists played an important role in the large-scale Pacific explorations that the major European powers launched between c. 1750 and 1830. While entangled in the interests of these powers, individuals such as Georg Steller, Georg Forster, Otto von Kotzebue, and others retained an intellectual independence. They served as mediators between different cultures, created transnational networks of knowledge, and contributed to the global traffic of ideas and material objects.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BerghoffExplorations
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Book Title: Explorations and Entanglements: Germans in Pacific Worlds from the Early Modern Period to World War I
ISBN: 9781789200287

Alexander von Humboldt (Book)
Title: Alexander von Humboldt
Author: Andreas W. Daum
Abstract: This book offers a succinct biography of the world-renowned naturalist, traveler and scholar Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). It addresses academic audiences as well as the general public.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.chbeck.de/product/26353221
Publisher: C.H. Beck
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9783406734359
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Social Relations, Shared Practices, and Emotions: Alexander von Humboldt’s Excursion into Literary Classicism and the Challenges to Science around 1800 (Article)
Title: Social Relations, Shared Practices, and Emotions: Alexander von Humboldt’s Excursion into Literary Classicism and the Challenges to Science around 1800
Author: Andreas W. Daum
Abstract: Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is still regarded as one of the world’s last universal scientists and praised for his ability to combine scientific and literary qualities in his work. Yet he struggled with both genres when in 1795 he published a fictional story on the “Rhodian Genius.” A closer look at Humboldt’s sole excursion into literary Classicism opens new perspectives on the challenges that science faced in the late Enlightenment and the age of Atlantic revolutions.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jmh/current
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Modern History
Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Humboldt Research Award (Humboldt Prize) (Staff/Faculty/Fellow Position)
Name: Humboldt Research Award (Humboldt Prize)
Abstract: As described by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation: "The award is granted in recognition of a researcher's entire achievements to date to academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future."
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/humboldt-award.html

Alexander von Humboldt am Rhein: Zur regionalen Grundlage von Humboldts Wissenschaft, Reisen und Politikverständnis 1789–1848 (Article)
Title: Alexander von Humboldt am Rhein: Zur regionalen Grundlage von Humboldts Wissenschaft, Reisen und Politikverständnis 1789–1848
Author: Andreas W. Daum
Abstract: Alexander von Humboldt’s early encounters with the Rhineland had a formative influence on the development of his scientific thinking. They contributed to finding his mode of travelling, and framed Humboldt’s understanding of politics in the revolutionary epoch between 1789 and 1848. With the exception of the Orinoco in South America, Humboldt studied no other river landscape as intensely as that of the Rhine. This interest allowed him to refine his geological interests, produce his first book, and reference the Rhine region as a point of comparison in his research and published work, from his American journey to the magnum opus Kosmos. Humboldt’s cultural and political experiences at the Rhine illustrate, too, the epoch’s tensions between a conservative, anti-revolutionary attitude and the growing dynamics of the liberal-minded, civic society. The latter began to embrace Prussia’s efforts to forge a new German patriotism in the 1840s, as evident in the celebrations devoted to the completion of the Cologne Cathedral in 1842 and 1848, which Humboldt observed first-hand.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: http://https://www.fnzrlg.uni-bonn.de/forschung/rheinische-vierteljahrsblaetter
Access Model: open access after some years
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Rheinische Vierteljahresblätter

Alexander von Humboldt: A Concise Biography (Book)
Title: Alexander von Humboldt: A Concise Biography
Author: Andreas W. Daum
Abstract: In this lucid biography, Andreas Daum offers a succinct and novel interpretation of the life and oeuvre of Alexander von Humboldt (1769―1859). A Prussian nobleman born into the age of European Enlightenment, Humboldt was a contemporary of Napoleon, Simón Bolívar, and Charles Darwin. As a naturalist and scholar, he traveled the world, from the Americas to Central Asia, and recorded his observations in multiple volumes. Humboldt is still admired today for his interdisciplinary outreach and ecological awareness. ... This book provides the first concise biography of Humboldt, covering all periods of his life, exploring his personality, the vast range of his works, and his intellectual networks. Daum helps us understand Humboldt as a seminal historical figure and illuminates the role of science at the dawn of the global world.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691247366/alexander-von-humboldt
Primary URL Description: Publisher's link.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780691247366
Translator: Robert Savage
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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