any. media event of the famous naturalist and explorer. to celebrate alexander from the bald jew 150. working on him for the discovery. expedition in boyd. alexander but not only saw himself as an adventurer he really cultivated this image of the daring adventure he was in he was the best publicist machine ever.

if you know him as well as she touts andre of all is an expert on alexander from whom bolts life and adventures her biography reintroduced the great naturalist to a new generation of readers and now the world is marking his 250th birthday we made out with andre of wolf at the royal institution in london one of britain's foremost establishments for scientific education and research. will spend over a decade on the traces of alexander for whom bolt she's written 2 books about him including an illustrated album about his famous expedition to south and central.

erica it depicts the hardships he enjoyed but also his fascination encounters and discoveries and it includes his drawings which fundamentally changed your view of the americas. alexander from whom boyd was for sure one of the greatest scientists of previous times of all times when he was the most famous scientist of his time and i think he's undergoing a little bit of a renaissance at the moment and i think quite rightly so because i think his views . how he brings together the arts and the science how he says that we need to use our imagination and our feelings to understand nature i think are very relevant today as we are dealing with climate change so no one dares to talk about the wonder of nature of the beauty of nature the vulnerable beauty of our planet and i think that's something that. something we could

get a bit of that we could probably use today. alexander was born to wealthy parents in burden in 769 after a brief career working for the prussian government he used his inheritance to embark on the adventure of a lifetime and set off for america at the age of almost 30 accompanied by the french explorer and botanist anybody who traveled to venezuela and from there to cuba colombia peru mexico and ecuador he collected plants specimens observed animals and became the 1st european to almost reach the peak of the chimborazo volcano in the andes at the time it was thought to be the highest mountain in the world later wrote $29.00 for about his trip he really cultivated this image of the daring adventurer he was he was the best. publicist to

machine ever he would write letters from south america long letters to his friends and then he would end them said i don't mind if you send them to the newspaper so by the time he returns everybody has heard about his adventure so it's very much part of his self promotion. bolt is believed to have written a total of $30000.00 letters luckily for him he was exempted from paying postage by the prussian postal minister. he documented his adventures in the letters and his notebooks describing how his boat capsized on the our noko river and he drowned talking about the tough hikes and the damage to his feet the various diseases and the mosquitoes. but he also praised the natural beauty and the cultural wealth of the countries he visited. he

returned from latin america with a complete portrait of the ancient civilization so he explained that these ancient south american civilization had been very sophisticated cultures with rich languages and with sophisticated architecture and he then in turn influenced many many scholars who began to study them his contemporaries the great german writer johann vulcan from gertrude delighted in his intellectual exchanges with whom he once said in 8 days of reading books you couldn't learn as much as what he tells you in an hour. u.s. president thomas jefferson met several times and maintained a correspondence with him for years. i consider him the most important scientist whom i've met. the english naturalist charles darwin is said to have been inspired by whom bolt while writing his most famous book on

the origin of species alexander from humbled was the greatest scientific traveler who ever lived. europeans had really looked down on the new world and then there's a there's another argument where you can say that he was he had a very strong influence on scene one would have are they met in paris and just went home returned and only while later set that whole world woke up south americans with his pen so was home alone i think so ho almost descriptions of latin america where so vivid and so beautiful he gave the colonists the confidence to fight their fight of independence. the soldier and statesman simone ball of i was instrumental in liberation latin american countries through spanish control. zander from home is the true discoverer of

america his studies did more for america than the action of all the conquerors before his expedition to south america bumble to ask the travel permission from the spanish changed and received a passport for the colonies but he was shocked by how arrogant and brutal the colonial rulers were towards the indigenous peoples was he aware of his own privileges as a wealthy european. i don't know if he would see it as we see it today we have to always bear in mind these historic figures that they live in their times what i can say is that he was unlike other europeans who travelled through south america so unlike other europeans he did not. see the indigenous people for example as savages or as barbarians quite the opposite so he was he respected them he would use them as their guides and he

very quickly realized that they were that they could navigate the jungle in a completely different way so he described them as the best observers of nature as the best geographers he ever met he also collected all their languages and later said that is there's not a language in south america through which we could not express an abstract philosophical european concept. yet when he set off on his 1st major expedition on the araa noko one of south america's longest rivers ignored the protests of his local guides and dug up skulls in a burial ground in the name of science. bolt was a man of his time he was committed to the enlightenment but he was also obsessed simply devoted to his research and could also be inconsiderate of others as well as of himself. he pushed himself to his limits he was not well prepared when he set off to climb chimborazo the soles of his shoes were far too

thin and he had no gloves his feet was soon blistered and bloody but he almost made it to the top to an altitude of $5917.00 majors. no european had ever made it that far. made drawings of everything that he observed so he could show others later. his famous cross sectional diagram of chimborazo sheds light on different climate and vegetation zones and gives an insight into his understanding of nature. he came up with a new concept of nature and that concept is that nature is a weapon of life that nature is an interconnected whole where everything so. how hangs together from the smallest insect to the tallest tree and he described as a living organism so that's what i mean with the invention of nature that he's not

until then nature was much more seen as a mechanical system not as a living organism. the idea of nature as a living organism in which everything is interconnected was a new one in the 19th century but who also wound that humans were a danger to nature you not only wanted people to understand nature but to feel that this is something that we now have to think about in the current debate about the climate crisis sensible. we have the ability is just not acceptable so in the scientific world for example in peer reviewed articles scientists are not allowed to write about their feelings and their emotions if you speak to scientists most will tell you that they became a scientist because they love nature so i think it is there and it is really time to dare to introduce this into debates again for example i give you one example which you know in the in. our whole debate about climate change we tend to

talk about statistics so we say we talk about the increasing acidity of of the oceans but we don't talk about the beauty of while. we all know how terrible oil production is for our planet but it is the photograph of a. black oil drenched that makes us kind of stop. untrainable space selling book the invention of nature alexander from humble its new world is not only a biography but an adventure story about homebuilt travels and discoveries full of exciting imagery. wherever home bottom bomb plant time during those 1st weeks of c'mon or something new called their tension the landscape had to spell over. the palm trees were ornamented with magnificent red blossoms the birds and fish seem to

compete in their carlos cop accused and even the crayfish risk i knew in yellow pink flamingos one legged at the shore and the palms fanned leaves mottled the white sand into patchwork of shade sun there were butterflies monkeys and so many plants to catalog that we run around like fools even the usually unruffled bump last sept he would go mad if the wonders don't stop soon. to get to know her subject will spend hours in archives libraries and private collections all over the world but she also literally followed in whole bolt's footsteps. one of the great things when you write a book about an explorer is that you get to travel the world obviously all in the name of research so i had so much fun. following his footsteps so it was a great excuse to go to latin america where i had never been before and i don't know how other writers do it but i need to i can't describe the landscape i've not

seen myself so because i'm not a wealthy prussian artist a craft i could not go on a 5 exploration so i had to kind of pick and choose so i went up to the right so we are on the edge of the rocks at 5000 meters and. i'm here because this homo came here and it was here on the 2 route so. if his vision. as nature is unified this is really the moment where you hear is he's a few to you guys they're high up i'm giving up here 5000 meters. so that was a spectacular moment also because the weather can be so terrible and we were just so lucky everything was perfect and then there was a moment to sun up which is another of the volcanoes where we actually found the hut in which humboldt had slept at 4000 meters. 6 years later on

trail full of stored on in tucson had again in the last tree as company german president frank fell to shine meyer had invited her to accompany his delegation to south america they went to colombia and ecuador and to the galactic a silence in february 29000 shimei in operate at the home board year to mark the 250th anniversary of her birth wolf was of course the perfect member of the delegation since she had helped to rescue the great explorer from british oblivion . if someone had told me 8 years ago when i sat on my own in an archive reading through home was horrible having writing that in 2019 i would listen to the german president give a speech in quito about whom was relevance for the environmental debate today i would have never believed it and that for me was very very very important moment to

moment with bombs and everything because for me the home but that is so important is the one who talks about who warns about the destruction of the environment. more than 200 years ago and to see him being used for this argument again i think is just wonderful it. has been translated into many languages and sold in dozens of. countries she's been invited all over the world has received numerous prizes and given dozens of speeches at conferences or on television and she's also on the program committee of the hall forum berlin's new museum for world cultures that's expected to open in 2020 the building that will house it based on berlin's form a city palace contains old and new architectural elements. the home bought for a movie showcase berlin's rich collections of non european cultural artifacts. how

would under a of wolf curator an exhibition here if given the chance. of last fall i'm glad i'm not a curator just a historian so i don't have to do this but i think i would. put something in there that deals with this link between the art and the sciences that bridge that we've completely forgotten so we tend to draw the sharp line between you know we see them as 2 different disciplines but someone like homeboy very much united it and i think that's really missing at the moment so i would look at that. and also because it's not just alexander it's also will have his name they both have the name what's so it should be also something about languages which i think you could bring liked poetry science arts stuff like that together alexander's older brother

the statesman an educational reform bill him from whom bald was also very famous during his lifetime the home board brothers grew up at schloss table losing their father as an early age their mother was a staunch advocate of education and both of them made the most of this each in his own why. so they had they were very different already as children both both set that they had an unhappy childhood. escaped into books stories of ancient rome and greece and alexander escaped into the forests and until you know stuff little insects in his pocket and collected and and then later as younger man's they were they were not very close. and then william was very critical about alexandre living in paris and said you forget your

job and this and then later as older man there so there's this really wonderful shift you can see how they become very close and they begin to work together and when you look at. williams work on language you can see that he does exactly what alexander bass with nature he sees language as a living organism. vilhelm was the prussian academic alexander the cosmopolitan explorer who became world famous he soon found berlin to provincial and lived in paris when he wasn't traveling his journeys took him to the united states and russia. and though he spent years planning a voyage to india he never made it there as britain's king george the 4th wouldn't give him permission. home bolt is everywhere monuments places and geographical features around the world have been named after him

including the home both current which flows along the western coast of south america there's also the penguin this lily is named after him even. in. it's weird when you go to america where hardly anyone knows alexander from on board there's so many places named after their best for example there are 13 towns named after him there are 4 counties there's a bay there is a river there is a university named after investor how about cheese some some younger. kids kind of teenagers early twenty's people know his name because the best marianna comes from humboldt county so they have heard is there but they don't know who he is 150 years ago it was a different story in 16910 years after his death and on the 100th anniversary of

his birth both was only with fireworks around the globe why was he only but forgotten afterwards. there's not a single big discovery attached to him was the name so he did not come up with the theory of evolution or he didn't discover. a natural law he came up with this idea that nature is a weapon of life we take this idea for so technical so so much for granted that we've forgotten the man behind this idea i think that's one thing and the other thing is that he is the his way of doing science of saying yes on the one hand you have to measure everything but on the other hand you also have to use your imagination was absolutely not accepted in the early 20th century anymore and then last but not least in the english speaking world he there's a very strong german sentiment with world war one so that that's the moment where he's going to get pushed out of the public memory here. many of whom bolts ideas seem to address contemporary problems not only because we are increasingly dealing

with the effects of climate change but also because more and more people are asking what they can do to halt it such as those taking part in the fridays to future movement headed by swedish chain richard to. realize 2 centuries earlier that human intervention in the natural world can have terrible consequences. there's a moment in his diary in 81 when he is when he's in latin america where he actually says that one day we might travel to distant planets and if we do that we will bring who take our lethal mixture of greed arrogance and while it's with us and we will leave those planets as ravaged as we've already done with so i think he sees this trajectory what we are. about what's about to happen i mean he in 832 he says there are 3 ways in which the in which humans can affect the climate he

says is through deforestation through irrigation and through the great masses of steam and gas at the industrial centers $832.00 so there was pretty good prediction pretty prophetic. but the time bull finished writing the invention of nature she thought she knew everything there was to know about alexander from one boat but then berlin state library acquired his diaries which hadn't been accessible to the public before and she wasn't done with one bold yet. there is actually one moment i can tell you exactly when i decided that i had to write a 2nd book about which was when. when his legendary south american diaries were born so they had been in private ownership until then but at the end of 2013 they were bored by the prussians heritage foundation and. they were made available online so this was the moment when the 1st pages became available at

the end of 2014 this was the moment when i was just handing over my manuscript for the invention of nature. so i couldn't use them. for the imagination which was not a problem in terms of content we cause we had transcriptions but seeing the actual paper pages 4000 pages with hundreds of little sketches and drawings i knew i wanted to do a book that would also show on board artistic visual side because he did not just understand nature intellectually but also visually so that's when i decided to do whatever you want to call it a kind of graphic novel or graphic nonfiction illustrated. journey of discovery or whatever it is but something that would show his stuff this trial and based on the adventures of alexander from whom bold shows that the book does more than summarized south american adventure. recounts his 1st encounter with the

continent's indigenous peoples his fascination with its natural beauty his discoveries and his observations about man made disasters illustrator lilian many of whom original texts and drawings into this wonderful graphic novel. in a way he became the collaborator so i wrote it lilian drew it and about every single page there something that did his manuscripts his his engravings his original plan specimens his maps is so his his handwriting is everywhere. untrainable spent a decade researching the life of alexander from home in archives libraries and private collections she traveled the world following in his footsteps to find out what he saw and felt on his expeditions she learned about the hardships he endured and the diversity of nature there's no doubt that alexander from whom was

a fascinating figure. how do you close the book on someone's son vibrant and does she even want to know. what i think i want to have to say goodbye forever he's just going to be like an old friend you see not as much as anymore maybe. i'm pretty sure that i'll continue being interested in him i mean this is the same with my previous books about the founding fathers i still do talks and events about it i still do interviews about it not as much as and anymore but i do have the feeling in the last almost 4 years since the invention came out i've been home was opposite the lady and it's kind of time to step back at some stage so. in 2020 i'm going to finally write another book you know so so i will see less of him i won't get completely divorced but i also will have some new friends which i will have to entertain not just him. untrainable snoop raja is another

historical biography this one is about several people she won't reveal who however she doubt she'll ever encounter another figure as exciting and give lent and important as alexander from him bolt the great gem a naturalist and explorer. to .

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the take. the clubs with the most cash truck the best place. and just keep on with the mock up and the fair play fun exciting place. can we say football. birth. home. of species. a home worth saving. again those are big changes and most start with small steps little ideas tell stories of creative people and innovative projects around the

world. is the to boost image solutions and the 1st issue. interactive content teaching the next generation above fundamental touch on. using channels available to inspire people to take action and most attorneys to do something here for the next generation the idea is the environment series of global 3000 on t.w. and online. where is home. with your family scattered across the globe. sun gives the. journey back to the roots which again. family from somalia lives around the world. urgent assistance. starts october any.

player. playing . this is d.w. news live from berlin tunisians are heading to the polls today in their presidential election the country called snap elections after the 1st democratically elected president since the arab spring died in office the poll is widely viewed as a test of one of the world's young democracies also coming up a nation remembers the life and legacy of one of the most controversial african leaders of our time. holds a state funeral for robert mugabe. and visitors.