When Maren Meinhardt’s “A Longing for Wide and Unknown Things; the Life of Alexander von Humboldt” was published in early 2018 by Hurst Publishers in London, it received quick and widespread praise from both literary as well as scientific reviewers. Unfortunately, as is the case with all-too-many excellent non-fiction works published in Great Britain these days, it never made its way across the Atlantic.
Some of the finest people it has ever been my pleasure to know have been afflicted by, and survived polio. In all these cases, however, their experiences were long ago. In truth, I had honestly thought the disease had been largely eradicated from the planet.
Every so often, a report is made through one of the better international news agencies of a large, very public destruction of a cache of elephant ivory. These spectacles are generally intended to draw attention to the illegal trade in the substance, as well as to draw attention to the dwindling number of elephants in the world.