The Invention of Humboldt: On the Geopolitics of Knowledge

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 Humboldt 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.

Mark Thurner is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, History and Humanities at FLACSO-Ecuador, and Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Florida. He was Professor of Latin American Studies at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, until the Institute's forced closure in 2021. He is the author of History's Peru: The Poetics of Colonial and Postcolonial Historiography (2011) amongst numerous other publications. He is the editor of The First Wave of Decolonization (Routledge, 2019).

Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra is the Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History in the Department of History, University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Nature, Empire, and Nation: Explorations of the History of Science in the Iberian World (2006) amongst numerous other publications. He is editor of Entangled Empires: The Anglo-Iberian Atlantic, 1500-1830 (2018).