Introduction
Part I: Setting Out
1. Close Encounter at a Paris Boarding House
2. A Walk across Spain and a Climb Up a Volcano
Part II: The Voyage
3. Aerial Views, Nocturnal Birds, and Wild Indians
4. The Eel Ponds of the Llanos
5. Riverworlds
6. The Mountain
7. The Changing of the Gods
Part III: The Return
8. Coming Home
9. Tales of Three Cities
10. Botany on Demand
11. Taking Leave
Part IV: Worlds Apart
12. A Lost Friend
13. Warlords and Kings
14. Cosmos and Microcosm
15. A Last Exchange of Gifts
16. Scattered Remains
Afterthoughts: A Bonplandian Ethos
Notes
Primary Sources
Bibliography
Index
Andrea Nye is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She is the author of many books, including Socrates and Diotima: Sexuality, Religion, and the Nature of Divinity.
"Well-researched and deeply nuanced, this book presents a wealth of
substantive material on the relationship between Aimé Bonpland and
Alexander von Humboldt. Nye offers a fresh alternative to works
that understate Bonpland's role, restoring his life and work to the
foreground. The book's binding theme—the contrast between
Bonpland's pragmatic proto-environmentalism and Humboldt's 'cosmic'
idealism—richly deserves our attention. At times stirring and
poignant, Nye's account is relevant for those seeking to understand
the deep roots of sustainability thinking." —Curt Meine, author of
Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work
"Andrea Nye significantly augments and balances biographical
scholarship on Alexander von Humboldt. By properly crediting
Humboldt's travel companion and coauthor Aimé Bonpland, Nye's book
corrects and enriches the often singular recognition of Humboldt.
Moreover, Ecology on the Ground and in the Clouds successfully
compares the two men's respective styles of research to refine our
thinking about the very nature of environmentalism." — Nicolaas A.
Rupke, author of Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography
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