Georg Forster

Georg Forster (1754–1794) was one of the most fascinating figures of his time: a brilliant writer, naturalist, explorer, draftsman, translator, and determined revolutionary. During his circumnavigation of the globe with James Cook, he touched icebergs with his own hands, walked along the beaches of Tahiti, visited foreign peoples, lived among cannibals, and crossed oceans and the equator. He was at the center of political events when he proclaimed the Mainz Republic in 1793, inspired by the French Revolution, which was the first republic on German soil. Jürgen Goldstein vividly and compellingly portrays this exceptional life, where freedom and the forces of nature intersected. No one has engaged in a comparable experiential experiment to connect nature with the political realm. The sparks that Forster ignited from his guiding principles illuminated, for a brief moment in history, the possibility of natural revolutions.