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Book Review
| The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism. By Aaron Sachs. New York: Viking Press, 2006. xii + 445 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, index. Cloth $25.95.
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| In 2005 EH ran a forum on "What Books Should Be More Widely Read in Environmental History." There, Laura Dassow Walls argued for the works of Alexander von Humboldt, insisting that the Prussian explorer/scientist's environmental thinking preceded that of Thoreau, Marsh, and Muir. Historian Aaron Sachs has stepped forward with his aptly titled book The Humboldt Current to draw the links between Humboldt's legacy, nineteenth-century explorations (to Antarctica, the American West, and the circumpolar North), and the roots of American conservationism. This is the Humboldt Current, the "Humboldtians" who were actively informed by the scholar's writings and sense of adventure: "Almost all American scientists in the mid-to-late nineteenth century considered themselves disciples of Humboldt" (p. 25). A book on that subject alone would be a welcome contribution to U.S. environmental history, but Sachs' impressive work goes far beyond his subtitle's parameters. |
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Part 1 provides analysis of the life and works of Humboldt and how his studies of natural history were proto-ecological with an understanding of bioregional interconnectedness. They were also imbued with a sense of social ecology; Humboldt argued fervently against slavery and slave-based economies. But his own contradictions were apparent in his numerous geological surveys, funded by imperialist governments, to advance large-scale mining ventures in Siberia and Latin America. That is why Sachs's discussion of nineteenth-century scientific imperialism, and the contradictions of the American Humboldtians (who struggled with economic versus "antiutilitarian" goals of nature, American patriotism versus "cultural independence" [p. 127], and at times, racial determination) is an important part of the story. Sachs perhaps does not bring sufficient resolution to the matter, but he does not shirk from addressing it. |
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Parts 2–4 follow with engaging chapters on the naturalists J.N. Reynolds, Clarence King, George Melville, and John Muir, showing the significance of their explorations on American scientific inquiry and U.S. expansionism. But along the way readers get a veritable Who's Who of American scientists, explorers, artists, and literati (e.g. Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Washington Irving, Timothy O'Sullivan, Walt Whitman, Charles Fremont, Herman Melville, Louis Agassiz, Asa Gray, Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, Benjamin Silliman, Frederick Law Olmsted, John Hay, William Deane Howells, James Dana, and especially Edgar Allan Poe)—all mingling together in these pages, all Humboldtian in their own ways. And while much of this discussion is based on secondary sources, the uniqueness of this book is in how Sachs shows the interconnections of their impact on American environmental thought. It is why Sachs explains these connections in terms of Poe's "border-grounds"—how the naturalists explored "the border between people and nature" (pp. 111, 144). The book is thus a model interdisciplinary work for American studies but also a compelling contribution for the history of science, environmental history, transnational history, and cultural geography. It reminds me why many of us have chosen to go into these fields. |
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To accomplish so much made for a rather long work and will make it difficult to adopt for some courses. But Sachs could not have accomplished his goal, nor done it with such flare, in a whittled-down book (although the nine-page acknowledgments might be a record!). And despite its length, this is a book that just cannot be grad-school skimmed—it is too loaded with useful material, a great deal of which is located in Sachs's fascinating footnotes. Sachs writes lyrically, and at times humorously (sometimes with fun, but ahistorical hypotheticals), and includes a wide array of photos and artwork. Creative interludes between chapters are appropriately entitled "excursions." However, his overuse of first person, personal travel anecdotes, and flowery descriptions reflect the author's background in journalism; they seem a bit out of place here and probably would have been scratched by a university publishing house. But the book is geared for a general reading audience (and priced accordingly), as well as for academics. For both audiences, Sachs points out, "Humboldt adduced his facts in such a way as to enhance rather than erase his readers' sense of wonder" (p. 92). I would add that Sachs has done the same. |
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Sterling Evans teaches at Brandon University in Manitoba. Author of Bound in Twine: The History and Ecology of the Henequen-Wheat Complex for Mexico and the American and Canadian Plains, 1880–1950 (Texas A&M, 2007) and The Green Republic: A Conservation History of Costa Rica (Texas, 1999), he is currently at work on a project exploring the history of Alexander von Humboldt's scientific research in Cuba and the development of Cuba's Humboldt National Park. He previously taught at Humboldt State University. |
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