Humboldt was certainly a wonderful person, but I'm not fully convinced he was as instrumental in defining our modern world as is suggested in this book. For sure, evidence is presented of each examples (either Muir, Thoreau, or whatever) admiration for the man. This is then extrapolated to explain the connections between their philosophies or work. In some cases this is clear, like with Darwin. In other cases it seems to be stretching the link. Regardless, the book is thorough and engaging. A biography not only of the man, but of his ideas. Or really, his main idea: nature is a whole, and the connections are all that matter. This idea, though it seems pretty well doctrine at this point, was counter to almost all of his colleagues at the time. This fact makes it more stark, and makes Humboldt worthy of our praise. He stuck with it and preached it to the next generation of natural philosophers.
To the books credit, Humboldt is not painted as a demi-god. Many of his failures and frustrations are laid bare. And it is refreshing to see his persistence in the face of these challenges. Also, that he didn't always come out victorious. This is encouraging.
I also thought she took more space than was needed.
A practical manual for modern job hunting. A nice mix of empirical evidence for a specific set of practices (largely diminishing standard practice in favour of a proactive game of information interviews and coordinated attack on unsuspecting small-to-medium enterprises. It's skill really is in keeping up to date (it emphasizes LinkedIn for god's sake!), and providing a couple tools to help organize and prioritize your own thoughts.