The Young Man and the Sea: A Scientist Ahead of His Time

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George Forster didn't begin life as a revolutionary. He was an 18th-century botanist whose life ended in Paris during the Reign of Terror. In this episode, historian Andrea Wulf tells host Marcus Smith about how, as a teenager, Forster sailed with Captain James Cook through the Southern Hemisphere and around Antarctica. Forster developed a transcendent love for the people he met along the way. And, as Andrea Wulf followed in his footsteps, she felt the distance of 250 years collapse on itself. George Forster grew up helping to support his family as his father’s assistant in botany and later on as a translator. When he got the chance to travel on a voyage to the southern hemisphere, he…