There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Ch. 82: The Honor and Glory of Whaling

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@thiswaitingheart
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Ch. 82: The Honor and Glory of Whaling
Nason Creek
by Spenser Sembrat
sheltered by the boughs...
Do y'all remember the book that I lugged all over South America in 2016? This book?
Well, I'm finally reading it, a full decade later, and I have Thoughts.
Not fully formed thoughts (and I'm only just over 100 pages in), but I'll try to articulate some of them. Take this with a grain of salt and keep in mind that I'm an early modernist who specialises on the Spanish Empire and has a special interest in history of science.
Much as I like a) the Guy In Question and b) the subject matter, I absolutely hate the subtitle. Idk if it's the fact that I'm a historian, or German, or both, but this title? Anglocentric as hell. Believe me, South Americans know who Humboldt is (he has statues all over the place and tons of species named after him), and so do Germans. I mean, the capital has a whole university and a museum named after the guy (and his brother).
Like I said, I like the guy, but Wulf is veering dangerously close to overinterpreting her sources/writing a hagiography at times. She has A Point she wants to make - roughly: Humboldt was the first (European) (scientist) to think of nature as a connection of environments and species that has to be experienced both through scientific measurement and emotion and the first to describe man-made environmental change, which makes him sort of the father of modern environmentalism and also nature writing, Romantic experience of the sublime, and possibly all manner of other things - and she makes it forcefully. It's not a point I entirely disagree with, but I'm not a fan of how she flattens some of his contemporaries' theories to make that point, and how she ends up with a one-man-genius story in the process. Just one example, from the chapter on Chimborazo: 'By now Humboldt had climbed so many volcanoes that he was the most experienced mountaineer in the world but Chimborazo was a daunting prospect even to him.' European mountaineer, you mean, because countless Indigenous people had in fact crossed the Andes regularly before him, and I suspect the Sherpa of Nepal would also like a word.
(Historian rant ahead:) Wulf is also clearly not up to date with the research on the contributions of Indigenous people to European early modern and 19th century knowledge-making and scientific discovery because her analyses of Humboldt's interactions never go beyond the descriptive surface-level. Madam, I *know* he had Indigenous guides because all Europeans in the region needed them. I'm not surprised by that discovery. It would have been nice if Wulf elaborated how Indigenous world-views that conceive of the cosmos as interconnected and reciprocal might have influenced Humboldt's thinking, though. (Kudos to her for pointing out his stance on slavery and his valuing Indigenous people's cultural achievements, which did set him apart from his contemporaries.)
Lots of quotations from letters and publications with not enough contextualisation of the development of Humboldt's ideas/theories (beyond mentioning important stations in his travels and meetings in his contacts), or, god beware, the scientific theories he was engaging with. She does mention said theories occasionally but somehow doesn't quote his writings on them, which I find odd.
Did we just skip over Humboldt's entire stay in Mexico and his interest in (Indigenous) mining technologies to focus on his meeting with Thomas Jefferson?!?!
Related: Her descriptions of the state of the Spanish South American colonies at the time of Humboldt's travels (1799-1804), that is just before most of them got independent, are superficial at best. Especially for someone who repeatedly mentions how interested (and convinced by) republican ideals Humboldt was. (Maybe the BolÃvar chapter will go into more detail on that, but I'm not convinced yet.)
Anachronistic use of terminology without making clear that is her interpretation and not expressions Humboldt himself actually used: Sure, the man did observe the impact of deforestation on water levels and soil erosion, and sure, those descriptions influenced how later scientists thought about these issues, but somehow I doubt he used the term human-induced climate change.
On the upside, this has endnotes and a bibliography. However, that apparently does not include contextualising any of the images used in the book, with the result that we get a wild mix of contemporary portraits, prints and drawings, undated views of Quito and illustrations from his travel narrative that might be from any time between 1805 and god-knows-when in the 20th century. Images are also sources and publication context matters.
Further, minor upside: She does in fact mention how Humboldt was likely queer (exact shade to be determined) and how even his contemporaries commented on it.
Whoops. Alright, we're doing the liveblog, apparently.
On the upside, the book is immensely readable and caters right to my interests. But also, maybe I've spent too much of my academic career in the company of Latin American early modernists. XD
Spotify's 20 years celebration is here to call out my listening habits once again XD
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Hill Top - Beatrix Potter’s House, Near Sawrey, England by Dominic Scott
Small, abandoned church, hidden by milky fog.
Four years after moving, I've put up some of the portraits & frames over my desk again. (Please exuse the glare, there is a window right opposite.)
by Dmitry Ivanov
can everyone reblog with the interest of theirs that was the most intense or continued for the longest because i’m so curious
Residenza Vignale in Milan
there's a lot of talk about reading comprehension and one thing i think is the biggest barrier to people on this site getting better at it is simply... rushing. rushing to share something you haven't understood, rushing to have an opinion without taking the time to think about it, rushing to declare that you don't understand something
take these tags, on somebody else's post (condolences pip)
the thing is. this is what i would call an inside thought. nobody would have known you didn't get it if you didn't tell them that. if you recognised that it was important but didn't have the headspace to process it, you can reblog without commentary for others, or to come back to later. or you can save it somewhere and wait until you DO have the capacity to read it over a few more times, ponder it, consider what it might mean, figure out how to understand it, and THEN reblog it
but no. rushing to reblog while it is still opaque. rushing to admit to ignorance rather than spend the time to achieve understanding. perhaps hoping that somebody will break it down for you more simply, though to my mind it was quite simply phrased in the first place. never stopping to take the time first
comprehension is not always instant! sometimes it takes a bit of time for something to percolate after you read it; sometimes you need to read it a few times; sometimes you realise you don't have the context for it and either go and get the context or accept that it's not for you right now
please just simply slow down. you don't always have to respond to everything within a second or two. it is okay if it is not an instantaneous understanding. we all need to get more comfortable with thinking more slowly and more deeply and more carefully, and not letting our instant split second responses drive us all the time, because they are a barrier to genuine reflection