Unearthed

Reviews / Votes

"Anthony describes polymath Alexander von Humboldt's exploration of Central and South America in this complex investigation of nineteenth-century mineral-extraction practices." * Nature * "In this powerfully argued and wide-ranging work, Anthony ambitiously sets out to reorganize historical understanding of the worlds of extractive economies and climate crises. The commanding figure of Alexander von Humboldt-naturalist, traveler, and publicist-has often been used as symbol of an enlightened and liberal vision of planetary environments and their interactions. Unearthed helps reorient that account with startling analyses of relations between the labor, hardware, and knowledge of miners and cultivators, often forced and exploited, in central Europe, Mexico, and the Russian empire in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The book uses period manuscripts, imagery, and surveys to explore how an intensively carbonized economy accompanied the projects of global political and scientific systems alike." -- Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge "This eagerly anticipated book shows how the first global Earth science emerged in the nineteenth century as a cheat sheet for rapacious imperialism. Alexander von Humboldt may have been the founder of modern ecology and a friend to anticolonial revolutionaries, but he was also, as Anthony's painstaking research shows, a key intermediary between Russian conquests in Central Asia and US incursions into Mexico. Colonial projects from the Andes to the Urals applied the geological and meteorological language that Humboldt appropriated from central European miners. Ironically, scientists like Humboldt justified the conquest of new mineral frontiers in the name of stabilizing climate. We are still living in the world they built. This is a must-read for all environmental historians and historians of science." -- Deborah R. Coen, Yale University