Book Review, “Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804- Volume 2” by Alexander von Humboldt

Book Review, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804- Volume 2 by Alexander von Humboldt

This is a book about South America.  Problem is, so many humans have filled the Earth over centuries and we can’t make any generalization without disrupting a subject.  But it’s a book with great focus and generalizations are made less harmful from the long, scientific narrative.  What we have here is a source which explains the means of tribalism between different natives in equinoctial America up the indicated date (1799-1804).  Violence existed; and, natives competed with each other on faith and survival.  I’ve reviewed Humboldt’s first volume and I’m happy to report that his prejudice isn’t such a collection of racist elements this time around.  There’s more anti-racism than racism here.  Slavery was very questionable during his life and his scientific inquiry sheds light on the horrors existing in South and North America back then, not just in humans in and out of the continents, but also from the general wilderness in different parts of mentioned American landscapes.  Europeans and Indians were peaceful and harmful to each other all at once.  Of course, discoveries continued to be made in the Americas even to the ignorance of its original natives; maybe a flower would be seen, but ignored or a tree would be seen, but ignored.  You’ll find occasional slang words which get appropriate for the exhibited classifications.  Now don’t just rely on basic education when referring to South America, or, those encyclopedias you might find on the computer- it takes serious reading to really understand anything of American lives, let alone native tribes and visiting foreigners.  Missions from Spain involved problems on their end and on the overall growth and system of South American cultures.  It can look as if Humboldt thinks less of our ancient past in terms of factual evidence since scientists from around his lifespan discovered conflicting ideas of existence among the native populations inside South America and livable continents from around the world.  What we don’t exactly have is data concerning the “coldest one of all”- Antarctica.  Here, there’s limits to Humboldt’s reasoning over South America because the bottom tip of mentioned continent is somewhat influenced by those old, frozen landscapes.  “Equinoctial” as a term reveals his bias from discoveries made in the American continents- it’s not so offensive, it’s only figurative for the huge navigations expressed in travel for the front on a limited compass.  Let’s not be mistaken about the native tribes though- each group got its share of chaos in the wilderness and it took some outside influence from Europeans to bring them to new levels of awareness.  And, the Europeans learned a great deal as well. 

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