THE HUMBOLDT CURRENT by Aaron Sachs

Cornell University professor Aaron Sachs traces the shift in environmental activism from the cosmopolitan, global approach of explorer naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) to the lococentrism of 21st century advocates concentrating on wilderness protection and preservation of green spaces in urban areas in the aptly titled The Humboldt Current. Subtitled Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism, the account begins in the final year of the 18th century when Humboldt sails from La Coruna, Spain at the start of an odyssey that takes him to Venezuela and much of South America, with 2 side trips to Cuba and a brief stay in the U.S. where he meets with President Thomas Jefferson and other notables.

Divided into 4 parts - EAST "Humboldt and the Influence of Europe", SOUTH "J.N. Reynolds and the "More Comprehensive Promise of the Antarctic"", WEST "Clarence King's Experience of the Frontier" and NORTH (George Wallace Melville and John Muir in Extremis", each part is completed by an "Excursion", a fascinating vignette in itself.

The word lococentrism frustrated me. Wikipedia doesn't define the word, but treats it as a typo for logocentrism. A google search turned up instances of the word in a bewildering array of scholarly articles that would only be accessible to a person using a very good academic library. The generally excellent index in The Humboldt Current does not list the term as an entry. So the best I can do is define negatively, i.e., it is the opposite of cosmopolitan. I suspect this is a less than complete understanding of the term but it addresses the loco part which doesn't necessarily convey crazy; rather it was derived from the Latin word for place - locus.

As a result of working in a natural history museum in a very German city for 31 years, I was introduced to Alexander von Humboldt years ago which puts me in a decided minority according to Sachs. Learning more about Humboldt and the impact his ideas and methods had on a series of naturalist-explorers with whom I'm more familiar made for a book that was a real pleasure to read. In my mind's eye I keep seeing the volumes of Kosmos (in sadly bedraggled bindings) in the DDC 500 section of the library. At some point Humboldt's writings must have been very influential at MPM -- perhaps the early curators used the books until their bindings fell apart. Of course the volumes might have already been beat up by the 1880's since it was the members of the mid-19th century Wisconsin Natural History Society (which also goes by a long German name that I'll surely misspell) who convinced the city to accept their collections and establish what was became known as the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee, later the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Pardon the digression and back to the book -- I was charmed and captivated upon opening it to learn about the author's adventures in Nevada. I'd only been in Nevade for four days at that point and was making my first visit to the public library, when I checked out a book which began with the story of an effort to find Humboldt, Nevada -- talk about immediately connecting to a book!

Some impressions upon finishing the book -- it has a very helpful chronology and a long section of my favorite kind of notes those which give the source of the information or quote and a discussion of the more complex topics and controversial statements. Hopefully, this book has settled the confusion about J.N. Reynolds first name -- he opts for J for James rather than Jeremiah and John as some sources call the lecturer and explorer (the N is for Neilson) -- see p. 21 and Note 39 (p.382). How sad to go down to posterity with one's first name a mystery but this has been the fate of many 19th century science writers who preferred to sign their articles with first (and middle) initials rather than their given names.