"Young Alexander von Humboldt's pockets are always full of treasures from the forest: stones, insects, plants, and fossils. In the second half of the nineteenth century, he grows up to become a science-adventurer and climate genius. His expeditions take him all over the world and lead to many new discoveries."--Amazon.

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Invention of Nature, comes a breathtakingly illustrated and brilliantly evocative recounting of Alexander Von Humboldt's five year expedition in South America. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, but his most revolutionary idea was a radical vision of nature as a complex and...

"A biography of Athanasius Kircher, a 17th-century Jesuit, scientist and polymath. He was one of the modern world's first scientific celebrities. His interests ranged from hieroglyphics to China to astrology to geology. He was one of the first scientists to formulate theories based on observation. In 1638, he was lowered into the smoking crater of Mount Vesuvius to observe how volcanoes worked. He published his findings 30 years later."--