This year, Berlin celebrates the life of a distinguished son; Alexander von Humboldt, who was born in the city 250 years ago.

Alexander von Humboldt was one of the scientists who defined our world. Dick Warner on a book that may help restore his well- deserved reputation as the father of environmentalism.

RELIGIOUS people, the world over, go on pilgrimages and venerate relics.

Nobel laureate Saul Bellow, a master of comic melancholy who in Herzog, Humboldt’s Gift and other novels both championed and mourned the soul’s fate in the modern world, has died at 89.