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1Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen

By Wilhelm von Humboldt

Ein klassicher Text des deutschen Liberalismus (Summary by redaer)

2Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.1

By Alexander von Humboldt

In 1799, with extensive travel permissions from the Spanish government, Alexander von Humboldt and the botanist Aimé Bonpland departed for the Americas on a journey of exploration that would last well into 1804. In writing the “Personal Narrative…”, von Humboldt combined a description of the places and people of their travels with diverse scientific observations; but particularly of plants and animals, geology, weather and astronomy. von Humboldt’s narrative (and Thomasina Ross’s translation) of their adventures is marvelously well written and at times poetically descriptive. Volume I of the “Personal Narrative….”, covers their preparations, departure from Spain, and their travels to the Canary Islands, Tobago, Cumana and vicinity, and Caracas and vicinity in Venezuela.<br /><br /> Alexander von Humboldt was a member of the Prussian aristocracy. He was well educated and as a young man worked as an inspector of mines. After receiving an inheritance from his Mother, he was able to follow his desire to explore and follow scientific pursuits, and was sufficiently wealthy to equip and fund his scientific expeditions. Although not a household name today (unless you live in one of the 18 places named after him), von Humboldt was the best known naturalist of his day, and his published observations and interpretations have a very important place in the history of science. For example, he strongly influenced Charles Darwin. He aimed to find the universal principles that integrate all aspects of nature (the Unity of Nature) rather than to just describe and as such is considered to be the founder of biogeography; and he is recognized as being among the first to describe the effect of human activity on climate.<br /> (written by Gail Timmerman-Vaughan)

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of romantic philosophy. Many consider him to be the last of the great polymaths. After his death in 1859, the scientific world began to divide into separate disciplines, each with its own knowledgeable but narrowly defined experts. Humboldt’s mind encompassed all that was then known of nature in one great whole. He could well be considered the father of modern ecology and earth studies. His great scientific and literary achievement was the multi-volume <i>Cosmos</i>, twenty years in the writing, in which he attempted to describe the known physical world. Humboldt’s lyrical style of writing influenced the subsequent genre of nature writing as well as many of the towering figures of the Romantic movement. This LibriVox recording is of the <i>Introduction to Cosmos</i>. The Introduction gives a good measure of breadth of Humboldt’s mind and is a pleasure to read or hear because of its literary felicity. This reading omits the copious footnotes in favor of maintaining the flow of thought of the body of the text. Also included are the translator’s preface which contains a short biography of Humboldt as well as the author’s own preface. - Summary by Wikipedia and david wales

4Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.2

By Aimé Bonpland and Alexander von Humboldt

In Volume 2 of “The Personal Narrative”, Alexander von Humboldt and the botanist Aimé Bonpland continue their travels, beginning at Lake Valencia in the llanos of Venezuela and then travelling the mighty South American river, the Orinoco, and its tributaries, for 75 days in a dugout canoe, guided by local Indians and accompanied by one of the local missionaries. As in Volume 1, von Humboldt describes the people, plants, animals, geography and geology of the region. These descriptions include his famous experiments on electic eels as well as descriptions of the arrau tortoise, river porpoises, crocodiles, jaguars and caribe (flesh eating) fish. Likewise there are narratives of the sights, sounds and smells of the scenery through which they passed, and accounts of the peoples of the Orinoco basin. Their canoe carried themselves and their provisions, but also their scientific instruments, collections, and a menagerie of caged birds and monkeys. von Humbold summarises the difficulties of the voyage. “The inconveniences endured at sea in small vessels are trivial in comparison with those that are suffered under a burning sky, surrounded by swarms of mosquitos, and lying stretched in a canoe, without the possibility of taking the least bodily exercise. In seventy-five days we had performed a passage of five hundred leagues (twenty to a degree) on the five great rivers, Apure, Orinoco, Atabapo, Rio Negro, and Cassiquiare; and in this vast extent we had found but a very small number of inhabited places.” These travels had the aims of identifying the source(s) of the Orinoco, of ascertaining its connection with the Amazon, and of making astronomical measurements to improve the maps of the rivers, all of which were incorrect at that time. (Incidentally, von Humboldt's longitudes are with reference to the Paris meridian.) Volume 2 describes their travels from the 21st of February to the 14th of June 1800, when they arrived at Angostura, the capital of the province of Guiana at that time. (summary by Gail Timmerman-Vaughan)

5Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.3

By Aimé Bonpland and Alexander von Humboldt

Volume 3, the final volume of the “Personal Narrative”, records the travels of Alexander von Humboldt and the botanist Aimé Bonpland in South and Central America, and the Caribbean. In this volume, they start at Angostura, the capital at that time of Spanish Guiana, where both required recuperation from serious febrile disease contracted on their journey on the Orinoco. Once well, they recommenced their travels, returning across Spanish Guiana and Venezuela to the coastal settlement of Nueva Barcelona, from whence they departed for Cuba and further travels in the Caribbean. As in the previous volumes, von Humboldt describes their travel with a narrative that is expressively descriptive of people, plants, animals and geology. Volume 3 also discusses slavery in Cuba and provides a geological description of South America north of the Amazon and east of the northern region of the Andes. (summary by Gail Timmerman-Vaughan)