Andrea Wulf

Review of Stephen Buchmann's The Reason for Flowers in WSJ

Here is my review of Stephen Buchmann's "The Reason for Flowers" - which is a pretty terrible book. Very rambling and not enjoyable. Shame.

click here for review on Wall Street Journal website 

click for PDF of review Download Petal to the Metal - WSJ

The Invention of Nature: Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly

Another fabulous early review of The Invention of Nature. A 'starred' review. 

"Evocative descriptions of his expeditions … delightful stories … Wulf’s stories of wilderness adventure and academic exchange flow easily, and her affection for von Humboldt is contagious."

        —Publisher’s Weekly

click here for full review in Publisher's Weekly

BBC Radio 4 Making History: Interview about Humboldt

Tom Holland interviewed me on BBC Radio 4 about Alexander von Humboldt's importance for environmentalism (and a bit about the man himself of course) in a programme about the natural history of history ... so to speak. 

click below for the podcast

MakingHistory 21-7-15

or here for BBC Making History website 

Richard Holmes on "The Invention of Nature"

And here is another spectacular advance quote for 'The Invention of Nature" ... by Richard Holmes who wrote the epic 'The Age of Wonder'. I'm so honoured.

"The Invention of Nature is a big, magnificent, adventurous book – so vividly written and daringly researched – a geographical pilgrimage and an intellectual epic! With brilliant, surprising, and thought-provoking connections to Simón Bolívar, Charles Darwin, William Herschel, Charles Lyell, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, George Perkins Marsh… The book is a major achievement.”

Richard Holmes, author of The Age of Wonder and Coleridge

Bookseller: Invention of Nature - One of top 12 books for October 2015

Invention of Nature listed in Bookseller as one of the top twelve books to be published in October 2015.

Review of Frank Wilczek'a A Beautiful Question in Financial Times

Here is my review of Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek's book about the question of beauty in the universe.

Download ‘A Beautiful Question’, by Frank Wilczek - FT.com (to avoid pay wall of FT)

A.N. Wilson on "The Invention of Nature"

The prolific and wonderful A.N. Wilson has just given me what must be one of the most amazing advance quotes I have ever received. Yeah! 

"This is a truly wonderful book. The German-speaking world does not need to be reminded of Alexander Humboldt, the last universal genius of European history. The English-speaking world does, astonishingly, need such a reminder, and Andrea Wulf has told the tale with such brio, such understanding, such depth. The physical journeyings, all around South America when it was virtually terra incognita, are as exciting as the journeys of Humboldt’s mind into astronomy, literature, philosophy and every known branch of science. This is one of the most exciting intellectual biographies I have ever read, up there with Lewes’s Goethe and Ray Monk’s Wittgenstein. And all around the subject is the world, gradually learning to be modern – sometimes it knew it was being taught by Humboldt, sometimes not, but there is hardly a branch of knowledge which he did not touch and influence. Hoorah, hoorah!!"

A.N. Wilson, author of The Victorians and Victoria: A Life

Miranda Seymour on "The Invention of Nature"

And another wonderful advance quote - this one is from the erudite Miranda Seymour:

“Andrea Wulf’s marvellous book should go a long way towards putting this captivating eighteenth century German scientist, traveller and opinion-shaper back at the heart of the way we look at the world which Humboldt helped to interpret, and whose environmental problems he predicted. She has captured the excitement and intimacy of his experiences within the pages of this irresistible and consistently absorbing life of a man whose discoveries have shaped the way we see.”

Miranda Seymour, author of ‘Noble Endeavours: A History of England and Germany’

LA Times: Alexander von Humboldt. The man who made nature modern

Here is my first Humboldt article - an op-ed piece in the LA Times (5 July 2015).

click here for the article