This book is about Humboldt's life and discoveries and the people that influenced him and that he influenced.

He was a global citizen of its time, and did not look at nature from a reductionist perspective. For him, nature could not be separated from art, or science, or social issues, or anything else. Nature is a complex system. Everything interacts with each other, and we have to look through different lenses to be able to somehow understand.

Humboldt's adventure and discovery lust inspired me too. If that dude could travel somehow respectfully while learning about nature more than 200 years ago, then why shouldn't we be able to do it now?

In this book, I also learned a lot about the historical context Humboldt lived in. I never really cared much about history, but seems like I can get inspired from this perspective. As long as it somehow connects to daily life of people, history is actually interesting.

I did not expect a rich white guy to have led an interesting life like him. It seems like he was not a complete asshole, but actually politically really active. He was against slavery, did not support the king, and he was most likely gay or at least not typically straight. Kinda ahead of his time?