Peter Moore at Literary Review:
An exemplary tour of the High Enlightenment might go something like this. You’d begin in the streets of 1760s London to feel the pulse of Georgian commerce. You’d then hop aboard one of Captain Cook’s colliers and cruise through the Pacific, having encounters every day. Returning to Europe you might watch Benjamin Franklin in diplomatic action at Passy and dine with Casanova in Vienna, before sailing up the Rhine with Humboldt. Having inspected the Soho Manufactory in Birmingham and admired the picturesque scenery of the Peak District, you’d cross the Channel just in time for the grand and bloody finale in Paris.
Only this isn’t a fantasy. This is the singular and spectacular trajectory of George Forster, subject of Andrea Wulf’s irresistible new biography. ‘George’, as he is called throughout, was an unlikely person to lead what Wulf terms a ‘revolutionary life’. Born in 1754 in a hamlet outside Gdansk, he was a shy and curious child. Long after he won fame as a traveller and naturalist, people described him as calm and tolerant, kind and gentle.
more here.
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