The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

So what do you know about Alexander von Humboldt?  Probably very little except for some geographic references I am guessing.  And so we start where Humboldt, the scientist, started in the last half of the 18th century - knowing little but wanting to know more.  At a time when science was more religion and philosophy than - well science, when scientist was not even a word, he gathered what few instruments there were and set out to understand the world.  As he traveled and measured and observed and recorded, he came to the conclusion that the world was not little bits of things but an interdependent whole.  While that may seem obvious now, in his day it was revolutionary.  Darwin carried Humbolt's books on his journey.  Pres. Jefferson welcomed him to the new United States as an expert on South America.  John Muir was guided by his philosophy. And those are just the names you might recognize.  He was one of the greatest thinkers of his time and influenced much of how we have come to understand the natural world.  I found going down the road of discovery with him fascinating.  The New York Times named this one of the ten best books of 2015.  Dense in parts and distinctively quotable in others, I agree.