Sandra Rebok, From the Spanish Royal Court to the White House: Alexander Von Humboldt’s Quest for Knowledge in a World o

2019 marked the 250th anniversary of Alexander von Humboldt, the Prussian explorer, naturalist, historian and humanist, whose comprehensive work has sparked universal scientific theories and movements to this day. This lecture discusses Humboldt’s role between the declining Spanish empire and the rising American nation at the time of his visit to the United States in the spring of 1804. It analyzes the delicate balance Humboldt struck between science and politics.