| Book Review | Environmental History, 13.1

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 13.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism. By Aaron Sachs. New York: Viking Press, 2006. xii + 445 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, index. Cloth $25.95.

In 2005 EH ran a forum on "What Books Should Be More Widely Read in Environmental History." There, Laura Dassow Walls argued for the works of Alexander von Humboldt, insisting that the Prussian explorer/scientist's environmental thinking preceded that of Thoreau, Marsh, and Muir. Historian Aaron Sachs has stepped forward with his aptly titled book The Humboldt Current to draw the links between Humboldt's legacy, nineteenth-century explorations (to Antarctica, the American West, and the circumpolar North), and the roots of American conservationism. This is the Humboldt Current, the "Humboldtians" who were actively informed by the scholar's writings and sense of adventure: "Almost all American scientists in the mid-to-late nineteenth century considered themselves disciples of Humboldt" (p. 25). A book on that subject alone would be a welcome contribution to U.S. environmental history, but Sachs' impressive work goes far beyond his subtitle's parameters.

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