The invention of Humboldt

• Titel: The invention of Humboldt
• Titelzusatz: on the geopolitics of knowledge
• Mitwirkende: Thurner, Mark [HerausgeberIn]
• Mitwirkende: Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge [HerausgeberIn]
• Verf.angabe: edited by Mark Thurner and Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
• Verlagsort: New York ; London
• Verlag: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group
• Jahr: 2023
• Umfang: xviii, 323 Seiten
• Illustrationen: Illustrationen
• Gesamttitel/Reihe: Routledge studies in global Latin America
• Fussnoten: Includes bibliographical references and index
• ISBN: 978-1-032-13917-3
• ISBN: 978-1-032-13916-6
• Schlagwörter: (p)Humboldt, Alexander von
• Dokumenttyp: Aufsatzsammlung
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Online-Ausgabe: Invention of Humboldt. - New York, NY : Routledge, 2023 |(DLC)2022031309
• K10plus-PPN: 1810001544

Abstract

The Apotheosis of Humboldt during the Nineteenth Century / Leoncio López-Ocón -- A Sense of Place: Early Modern Roots of Humboldt's Natural History Practices / Florike Egmond -- Six Days on Tenerife: The Making of Humboldt's Tropical Antique / Peter Mason -- Caldas and Humboldt in the Andes: Who Invented Biogeography? / Alberto Gómez Gutiérrez -- An Archaeology of Mutis' Disappearing Gift to Humboldt / José Antonio Amaya -- Incas, Pyramids and Amazons: Notes on Humboldt's Equatorial Encounters / Neil Safier -- Humboldt's Magic Mountain / Juan Pimentel -- Peruvian Desencuentro: Humboldt's Fog, Unanue's Light / Mark Thurner -- Air in a Flask: The Mexican Making of Humboldt's Objects of Knowledge / Miruna Achim and Gabriela Goldin Marcovich -- Humboldt's Misreading of the Mercantilist Face of New Spain / José Enrique Covarrubias -- Bonpland's Cactus, Or Trafficking in Exotics and Ignorance / Irina Podgorny -- Humboldt's Columbus, Or the Iberian Worlds that Humboldt Ignored / Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra.

Abstract

"The Invention of Humboldt is a game-changing volume of essays by leading scholars of the Hispanic world that explodes many myths about Alexander von Humboldt and his world. Rather than 'follow in Humboldt's footsteps' this book outlines the new critical horizon of 'post-Humboldtian' Studies: the archaeology of all that lies buried under the Baron's epistemological footprint. Contrary to the popular image of Humboldt as a solitary 'adventurer' and 'hero of science' surrounded by New World nature, The Invention of Humboldt demonstrates that the Baron's opus and practice was largely derivative of the knowledge communities and archives of the Hispanic world. Although Humboldtian writing has invented a powerful cult that has served to erase the sources of his knowledge and practice, in truth Humboldt did not 'invent nature' nor did he pioneer global science: he was the beneficiary of Iberian natural science and globalization. Nor was Humboldt a pioneering, 'postcolonial' cultural relativist. Instead, his anthropological views of the Americas were Orientalist and historicist, and in most ways were less enlightened than those of his Creole contemporaries. This book will reshape the landscape of Humboldt scholarship. It is essential reading for all those interested in Alexander von Humboldt, the Hispanic American enlightenment, and the global history of science and knowledge"--