I have enjoyed reading THE TRAVELER by Andrea Wulf.
I particularly like this passage from the book in which she paraphrases the thoughts of George Forster, the eighteenth-century naturalist, explorer, and writer who is the subject of the book.
“Humans are like harp strings…from which a great variety of melodies and harmonies can be produced because of their different lengths. Were the strings all one length, the richness of the music would be lessened. Our differences produce the symphony that is humankind.”
He traveled with Captain James Cook and saw the populations in the Pacific and Atlantic islands and everywhere the they stopped. He saw that humans were at their core all the same. The differences in customs and points of view were to be studied and celebrated, not feared. He was a man of his time, and in his writings speak to our time.