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Acclimatization
(2003)
Together with their wives Otto and Richard Schomburgk arrived in Port Adelaide (South Australia) on August 16th 1849. The essay looks at how these two brothers, who had received their scientific training and promotion in the circle surrounding Alexander von Humboldt, reacted to the unfamiliar conditions in the young British colony. Some indication will be given as to the differences between the Schomburgk brothers treatment of the natural resources of the new colony and that of the English colonists of the time.
Die bisher - 1860 und 1872 - unternommenen beiden Versuche, das Gesamtwerk Alexander von Humboldts bibliographisch zu erfassen, können als gescheitert betrachtet werden. Die in der mehr problem- als werkorientierten Schaffensweise Humboldts, der zeitgenössischen Popularität seiner Schriften und den buchhändlerischen Verhältnissen seiner Zeit begründete Unüberschaubarkeit seines publizierten Œuvres begründete eine Art bibliographischen und buchhändlerischen Mythos, der jeden weiteren Versuch einer verläßlichen und wenigstens in Teilen vollständigen Bibliographierung dieses Werkes geradezu als Abenteuer erscheinen lassen mußte. Horst Fiedler und Ulrike Leitner haben sich diesem bibliographischen Abenteuer gestellt. Als Ergebnis ihrer sich über zwei Jahrzehnte erstreckenden Bemühungen konnte im Jahre 2000 die Bibliographie der selbständig erschienenen Schriften Humboldts vorgelegt werden.
In his “Essay on the Fluctuations in the Supplies of Gold” (1838) Humboldt presents a global history of the flow of precious metals from antiquity to the 19th century. This paper traces Humboldt’s economic thinking within his natural and historical research, starting with an outline of his educational background which incorporated late mercantilist and early liberal influences. It then discusses a world map and four charts drawn by Humboldt, which combine historical and contemporary statistical data into a cartographical vision of a global economic circuit. In a next step, the article explores Humboldt’s application of natural and historical research methods in the field of political economy, using the example of his 1838 essay. Finally, the article addresses Humboldt’s discussion of platinum, a precious metal whose limited natural distribution contradicted the idea of free global exchange.
The author's recently published monograph on Alexander von Humboldt[1] describes the multiple images of this great cultural icon. The book is a metabiographical study that shows how from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present day Humboldt has served as a nucleus of crystallisation for a variety of successive socio-political ideologies, each producing its own distinctive representation of him. The historiographical implications of this biographical diversity are profound and support current attempts to understand historical scholarship in terms of memory cultures.
A few months before his death, A. v. Humboldt attended the celebration in honor of the 127th birthday of George Washington at the US legation in Berlin. A letter to the American Envoy, Joseph A. Wright (1810 – 1867), underlines Humboldt’s admiration for the fi rst president of the United States. At the same time Humboldt asked the diplomat to mail a letter to the German-American Bernard Moses (1832 – 1897) in Clinton, Louisiana, who had named his son Alexander Humboldt Moses (grave on the Hebrew Rest Cemetery #2 in New Orleans, burial plot A, 12, 5). It appears to be possible that the Moses family still owns Humboldt’s letter.
(Auf) Humboldts Spuren
(2021)
Vor seiner Besteigung des Antisana in Ecuador verbrachte Alexander von Humboldt mit seinem Expeditionsteam die Nacht vom 15. auf den 16. März 1802 in einer Hacienda am Fuße des Vulkangipfels, deren letztes bauliches Zeugnis eine steinerne Hütte darstellt. Bauforscherische Untersuchungen eines internationalen Forscherteams konnten die mehrschichtige Bau- und Reparaturgeschichte dieses Baudenkmals ermitteln und über eine Auswertung von Reiseberichten mehrerer Andenforscher die Nutzungsgeschichte des einzelnen Gebäudes und des gesamten Anwesens klären. Schließlich ergaben sich daraus neue Erkenntnisse zu Humboldts Aufenthalt am Antisana.
On the 17th of July 1800 Alexander von Humboldt was elected as an extraordinary member of the Prussian Académie royale des sciences et belles-lettres at Berlin. The paper first deals with Humboldt’s scientific activities before his election and then goes into detail as far as his integration into the work of the Academy is concerned. Humboldt was elected as a chimiste célèbre, but as a member of the Academy he did not work as a chemist. When Humboldt proposed in 1837 to classify the members of each class in special fields, he chose for himself the field of "mineralogy-geology".
In letters to trusted friends and in conversations Humboldt often showed an inclination to make fun of persons, institutions and situations. In most cases he did this tongue in cheek, rarely hurting people seriously. A special target of Humboldt’s ironical remarks was the Prussian ministry of education and culture because of its animosity to the natural sciences which Humboldt wanted to promote. Often Humboldt expressed his frustration about narrow-mindedness and arrogance which he observed in his hometown of Berlin. Sometimes he had reasons to criticize the Prussian Academies of Sciences and of Arts. Humboldt had a fine sense of humor and many critical remarks can only be understood in the context in which they were made. The reader should therefore be warned, not to take any ironical or sarcastic characterization of a person or an institution literally.
"Partager le crime"
(2005)
Alexander von Humboldt has been characterized as the second, scientific discoverer of the New World, as the last universal scientist, Aristotle of modern times, etc. However, more or less hidden in his correspondence we find certain self-characterizations which are not that well-known. Some of them are quoted and discussed in the paper. Thus, an attempt is made to answer the question why Humboldt liked to call himself "the old man from the mountains", and whether or not he found it appropriate to be called "Aristotle of our age."