A thoroughly researched and easily readable biography of the Prussian scientist Alexander Von Humboldt, whose ideas have become so widely accepted that the man behind them is nearly forgotten. Born in 1769, Humboldt was one of the most famous men in the world by the time of his death at 89 years old in 1859. He traveled expensively through South America, Europe and Russia studying every facet of the natural world: geology, botany, zoology, agriculture, indigenous culture, history, and how politics are impacted by the environment. He wrote books that for the first time connected diverse forces such as weather to landmass, human activity to ecological damage, vegetation zones to altitude. His work heavily influenced his contemporaries Charles Darwin, Johann Wolfgang von Geothe, Thomas Jefferson, and Simon Bolivar as well as the following generation of scientists and nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Ernst Haeckel and John Muir. All my life I have known of Humboldt county, Humboldt Bay, and Humboldt University; I am very glad to finally learn about the man who they were named for.