The New Spanish-language Version of Humboldt's Cosmos Is Now Complete
In October, 2023, I wrote the post Alexander von Humboldt's Cosmos, New Translation Into Spanish, in which I related finding in the Siglo del Hombre bookstore in Bogotá the first volume of a new Spanish-language version of Alexander von Humboldt’s Kosmos, originally published in German between 1845 and 1862 in five tomes, the last posthumously.
This new version, published by sigloxxieditores in Mexico with the support of the Mexican authorities, is a completely new translation into Spanish directly from the German. All three volumes are now available: the first volume covers Humboldt’s original Tomes I and II, and the second volume Tomes III, IV and V. The third volume is a collection of maps made by Heinrich Berghaus based on Humboldt’s work. I was able to pick up the second and third volumes at The Bogotá International Book Fair 2024.
Below are some of the descriptive paragraphs from sigloxxieditores, translated into English with the aid of Deepl.
Alexander von Humboldt, Cosmos, volume I:
Originally published between 1845 and 1862, Humboldt considered Cosmos to be his greatest work and devoted the last years of his life to it. The result was a sort of personal encyclopaedia, in five tomes — the last of which appeared posthumously — in which he compiled the fruit of his labours as a researcher of the human and natural realm: it is a transdisciplinary effort in which literature and art coexist with mineralogy, the history of civilisations with that of animals and plants, volcanology with the study of the stars. As if that were not enough, it is an unusual appeal to the reader to enjoy nature and knowledge.
This first volume brings together the three [sic] initial tomes. It begins by celebrating the joy that nature brings us through art and delimiting the treatment that the description of the physical world will have throughout the book. It then turns to the means of stimulating the study of nature, such as landscape painting and descriptive literature. Finally, he discusses the conception of the physical world among the Hellenes, the Romans and the Arabs, and how the study of nature, mathematics, chemistry, physics and astronomy was shaped by great figures such as Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies, Columbus, Galileo, Newton and Kepler.
Alexander von Humboldt, Cosmos, volume II:
This second volume comprises the last three tomes of the original work in German (Tomes III, IV and V). In the beginning of this volume, which corresponds to Tome III of the original work, Humboldt goes back to Ancient Greece and the late Middle Ages to discuss ideas and phenomena of space and connects them historically and etymologically with the discoveries of his own time, as well as explaining how space phenomena such as nebulae and comets, and finally planets and solar phenomena, develop.
In Tomes IV and V of the original work, he focuses on telluric phenomena; Tome IV focuses on geology and geography, beginning with the Earth's internal processes such as magnetism and geothermal energy, then explaining their repercussions on the Earth's crust in each continent and dedicating sections to Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the Pacific and Atlantic islands, as well as a special chapter dedicated to Mexico. In Tome V of the original work, he returns to telluric phenomena based on the relationship between the interior of the Earth and its exterior through volcanology and the geological study of the earth's layers and types of rock.
Heinrich Berghaus, Physical Atlas:
The Physical Atlas is a book by the German geographer and cartographer Heinrich Berghaus (1797-1884), which was originally conceived together with Alexander von Humboldt to accompany Cosmos.
It is made up of a great diversity of fascinating and surprising data, which speak of the historical moment in which Berghaus lived: maps on the cultivation of edible plants, on sea and river currents that bear witness to the development of agriculture, the rise of capitalism and its productive and transport needs, bringing together the knowledge that enabled the development of communication and intercontinental shipping trade. In addition there is Humboldt's system of isothermal lines, as well as depictions of air currents and magnetic lines, knowledge that decades later served the development of aviation and telecommunications.
Berghaus’s maps are much more than a collection of geographic information for scientific and educational purposes, for they are not maps as we traditionally imagine them: they contain, in addition to geographic profiles, detailed lists, illustrations with human and animal figures, and information tables. Many of them are diagrams and numerical tables rather than maps. This atlas focuses on the immediate geography of Germany and the European continent, but also covers regions far removed from Europe, such as Asia or America.
These books are truly works of art. The typography is beautiful, as are the high-resolution images of paintings and prints. The books are each 24cm by 35cm, and the three together weigh 9.5kg. If you read Spanish, and have the shelf space for the books, they would be a beautiful addition to any library.