The Alpine Enlightenment

A study of the experience of nature in the eighteenth century based on the life of Horace-Bndict de Saussure (174099). In The Alpine Enlightenment, historian Kathleen Kete takes us into the world of the Genevan geologist, physicist, inventor, and mountaineer Horace-Bndict de Saussure. During his prodigious climbs into the upper ranges of the Alps, Saussure focused intensely on the natural phenomena he encounteredglaciers, crevasses, changes in the weather, and shifts in the color of the skyand he described with great precision what he saw, heard, and touched. Kete uses Saussures evocative writings, which emphasized above all physical engagement with the earth, to uncover not just how people during the Enlightenment thought about nature, but 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. In so doing, he offered a vision of nature as worthy of respect independent of human needs, anticipating present-day concerns about the environment and our shared place within it.