Living on a Volcano: Franz Junghuhn: A Biography
On the unlikely, adventurous life of the ‘Humboldt of Java’
These days the Prussian-Dutch scientist Franz Junghuhn (1809-1864) is mostly known for his role in the Netherlands’ free thought movement. But he was so much more: an explorer, anthropologist, surveyor, physician, geographer, geologist, writer and botanist – and obsessed with Java’s many volcanos. In this irresistible biography, historian Ulbe Bosma recounts Junghuhn’s unlikely, adventurous life, restoring his legacy within today’s debates on science, ecology and colonial history.
Born into a poor family in Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars, Junghuhn developed a love of mycology and botany early on, rebelled against family and religion, was imprisoned as a student for duelling, escaped, joined the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, and travelled as a physician to colonial Indonesia where he fell in love with Java’s flora, fauna and geology. He became instrumental in the island’s production of kina bark, used to treat malaria. Time and again, however, Junghuhn’s volcanic personality would bring him into conflict with the colonial government, academic colleagues and friends.
While Junghuhn was a man of action, Bosma paints a careful psychological portrait. He positions the polymath, and his significance within the international scientific community, in a time when romantic science (in the tradition of Goethe, Schelling and Novalis) was falling out of favour. Junghuhn’s work nevertheless won him the admiration of his idol Alexander von Humboldt, and his groundbreaking magnum opus, Java, Its Shape, Cladding and Internal Structure, remains a foundational text in Southeast Asian volcanology, botany, and geography. In the end, liver disease would cut short Junghuhn’s boundless ambition, and Bosma explores his paradoxical role as both critic and agent of the colonial system.
From the author of The World of Sugar (Harvard University Press, 2023), translated into 10 languages
Irresistible biography that reads like an adventure novel
Specimens collected by Franz Junghuhn are still cared for in herbaria across the world
Ulbe Bosma (b. 1962) is affiliated with the International Institute of Social History (IISH) and holds a special professorship in history at Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam. He is a leading authority in the field of global history and has published extensively in international academic and trade outlets.