The Monster's Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World [Paperback]

A gripping narrative of a fearless paleontologist, the founding of Americas most loved museums, and the race to find the largest dinosaurs on record. [An] entertaining, skillfully told history of Gilded Age fossil-hunting...?Randall expertly captures the poisonous mix of personal ambition, ruthlessness, big money and nationalist zeal that drove it. David K. Randall brings alive that swashbuckling time at the turn of the 20th century, when dinosaurs were still a relatively new concept... [He] combines his journalists eye for details with a storytellers flair for spectacle. His tale is as rollicking as a Westernand in many senses, it is one... Along the way, Randall grapples with a profound question: Should fossils be treated as commodities? Randall successfully writes the human story behind the discovery of dinosaurs; a book that will delight readers of science and history. Exciting as any action tale, [A] colorful adventure saga... [Randall] astutely analyzes the T. rexs place in popular culture while maintaining that the most important lesson to be learned from the dinosaurs 'fearsome reign' on Earth may be that 'the climate always wins.' Paleontology buffs will thrill to this vibrant, treasure-filled account. Astute and entertaining...?Randall carefully outlines the shifts in scientific understanding prompted by the appearance of [the T. Rex], and he makes a persuasive case for its profound impact on our conception of the history of life on Earth...?An absorbing account of early dinosaur discoveries and their cultural legacies. A spectacular yarn of science and adventure, Barnum Brown and T. rex, the dinosaur he literally exploded from the depths of time from remote Montana quarries, lie at the heart of David K. Randall's paleontological thriller that is a tell-all of how the man came to be, a fortuitous journey from a small town in Kansas to the halls of America's greatest natural history museum in New York. I read the volume spellbound... Readers arelÃ/