Contenu
"In The Alpine Enlightenment, historian Kathleen Kete takes us into the world of the Genevan geologist, physicist, inventor, and mountaineer Horace Bâenâedict de Saussure. During his prodigious climbs into the upper ranges of the Alps, Saussure focused intensely on the natural phenomena he encountered-glaciers, crevasses, changes in the weather, and shifts in the color of the sky-and he described what he saw and felt with great precision, articulating a view of nature as worthy of respect independently of human needs. Kete uses Saussure's evocative writings, which emphasized above all physical engagement with the earth, to uncover not just how people during the Enlightenment thought about nature, but more importantly how they experienced it. As Kete shows, Saussure thought with and through his body; he harnessed his senses to understand the forces that shaped the world around him, and in so doing, he anticipated present-day concerns about the environment and our place as humans within it"--