Andrea Wulf Books

BIOGRAPHY: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & MEDICINE. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is the great lost scientist: more things are named after him than anyone else. There are towns, rivers, mountain ranges, the ocean current that runs along the South American coast, there's a penguin, a giant squid - even the Mare Humboldtianum on the moon. His colourful adventures read like something out of a Boy's Own story: Humboldt explored deep into the rainforest, climbed the world's highest volcanoes and inspired princes and presidents, scientists and poets alike. Napoleon was jealous of him; Simon Bolivar's revolution was fuelled by his ideas; Darwin set sail on the Beagle because of Humboldt; and Jules Verne's Captain Nemo owned all his many books. He simply was, as one contemporary put it, 'the greatest man since the Deluge'.

Before Longitude no one remembered John Harrison. The Invention of Nature does the same for Alexander von Humboldt

From the Costa Prize-winning author of The Invention of Nature, Magnificent Rebels is a riveting, eye-opening biography of the first Romantics: a revolutionary group of friends based in the small German town of Jena whose modern ideas transformed society and the way we lead our lives today

"A follow-up to the award-winning Andrea Wulf's critically acclaimed history of British gardening, The Founding Gardeners is the story of how George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison's passion for nature, plants, agriculture and gardens shaped the birth of America"--OCLC

A “thrilling adventure story" (San Francisco Chronicle) that brings to life the astronomers who in the 1700s embarked upon a quest to calculate the size of the solar system, and paints a vivid portrait of the collaborations, rivalries, and volatile international politics that hindered them at every turn. • From the author of Magnificent Rebels and New York Times bestseller The Invention of Nature. On June 6, 1761, the world paused to observe a momentous occasion: the first transit of Venus between the Earth and the Sun in more than a century. Through that observation, astronomers could calculate the size of the solar system—but only if they could compile data from many different points of the globe, all recorded during the short period of the transit. Overcoming incredible odds and political strife, astronomers from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Sweden, and the American colonies set up observatories in the remotest corners of the world, only to be thwarted by unpredictable weather and warring armies. Fortunately, transits of Venus occur in pairs; eight years later, they would have another opportunity to succeed. Thanks to these scientists, neither our conception of the universe nor the nature of scientific research would ever be the same.

A stunning historical narrative that reveals 300 years of English culture and society through an exploration of seven great gardens, from Tradescant's designs for Hatfield House to Hampton Court, Chatsworth and Jekyll's famous garden at Hestercombe.

In "Fabelhafte Rebellen" beleuchtet Andrea Wulf die Denkbewegungen um 1800 in Jena, wo Dichter und Philosophen wie Goethe und Hegel das Individuum in den Mittelpunkt stellten. Sie schildert eine Zeit voller leidenschaftlicher Ideen und Skandale, die auch heute noch relevant sind. Das Buch enthält 30 farbige Abbildungen und 2 Karten.