Mark Cocker

Spectator books of the year: Mark Cocker on a stake through the heart of pseudoscience

  • Comments

The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science by Andrea Wulf (John Murray, £25). Darwin pronounced him the greatest scientific traveller who ever lived, but the brilliant German Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) left no groundbreaking theory or world-changing book. Wulf sets out to restore his diminished reputation, and has given us the most complete portrait of one of the world’s most complete naturalists.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Read next

Trending

Niall Gooch

The Turner prize doesn’t make sense anymore

In 1950 the American critic Lionel Trilling suggested, in his book The Liberal Imagination, that there was no meaningful right-wing philosophy in the US. ‘The conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not… express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.’ He was giving voice

Because you read about climate change

Also by Mark Cocker

Latest

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in