
eBook - ePub
Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party
How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party
How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World
About this book
From the bestselling author of The Clockwork Universe and The Writing of the Gods, an “utterly delightful…hugely entertaining” (Air Mail) book about the eccentric Victorians who discovered dinosaur bones, leading to a whole new understanding of human history.
In the early 1800s the natural world was a safe and cozy place, or so people believed. But then a twelve-year-old farm boy in Massachusetts stumbled on a row of fossilized three-toed footprints the size of dinner plates—the first dinosaur tracks ever found. Soon, in England, scientists unearthed enormous bones that reached as high as a man’s head. Outside of myths and fairy tales, no one had even imagined that creatures like three-toed giants had once lumbered across the land—nor dreamed that they could all have vanished, hundreds of millions years ago.
In Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the early 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today. The tale begins with Mary Anning, a poor, uneducated woman who had a sixth sense for finding fossils buried deep inside cliffs; moves to William Buckland, an eccentric geologist who filled his home with specimens and famously pieced together a prehistoric scene from the fossil record inside a cave; and then on to the controversial Richard Owen, the era’s best-known scientist, and the one who coined the term “dinosaur.”
“Exuberant” (Kirkus Reviews), entertaining, erudite, and featuring an unconventional cast of characters, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party tells the story of how the accidental discovery of prehistoric creatures upended humanity’s understanding of the world and its own place within it.
In the early 1800s the natural world was a safe and cozy place, or so people believed. But then a twelve-year-old farm boy in Massachusetts stumbled on a row of fossilized three-toed footprints the size of dinner plates—the first dinosaur tracks ever found. Soon, in England, scientists unearthed enormous bones that reached as high as a man’s head. Outside of myths and fairy tales, no one had even imagined that creatures like three-toed giants had once lumbered across the land—nor dreamed that they could all have vanished, hundreds of millions years ago.
In Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the early 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today. The tale begins with Mary Anning, a poor, uneducated woman who had a sixth sense for finding fossils buried deep inside cliffs; moves to William Buckland, an eccentric geologist who filled his home with specimens and famously pieced together a prehistoric scene from the fossil record inside a cave; and then on to the controversial Richard Owen, the era’s best-known scientist, and the one who coined the term “dinosaur.”
“Exuberant” (Kirkus Reviews), entertaining, erudite, and featuring an unconventional cast of characters, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party tells the story of how the accidental discovery of prehistoric creatures upended humanity’s understanding of the world and its own place within it.
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Yes, you can access Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party by Edward Dolnick in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Military & Maritime History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Introduction: A Shriek in the Night
- Chapter 1: âDragons in Their Slimeâ
- Chapter 2: The Girl Who Lived
- Chapter 3: âThe Most Amazing Creatureâ
- Chapter 4: An Epic Written in Chalk
- Chapter 5: âThe Dreadful Clink of Hammersâ
- Chapter 6: âItâs a Beautiful Day and the Beaches Are Openâ
- Chapter 7: Trembling in the Dark
- Chapter 8: The Divine Calligrapher
- Chapter 9: The Apple of Godâs Eye
- Chapter 10: Whales in the Treetops
- Chapter 11: Without a Trace
- Chapter 12: âNone of the Advantagesâ
- Chapter 13: âSister of the Aboveâ
- Chapter 14: Ferns and Fox Hunters
- Chapter 15: Into the Temple of Immortality
- Chapter 16: Framed for Bliss
- Chapter 17: âA Delicate Toast of Miceâ
- Chapter 18: Kirkdale Cave
- Chapter 19: In Natureâs Cathedral
- Chapter 20: âQuite in Love with Seaweedsâ
- Chapter 21: William Paley Stubs His Toe
- Chapter 22: Here Be Dragons (and Giants and Cyclopses)
- Chapter 23: Looking into Medusaâs Eyes
- Chapter 24: Leibnizâs Unicorn
- Chapter 25: âThe Grinders of an Elephantâ
- Chapter 26: âThe Terror of the Forestâ
- Chapter 27: âThe Very Extraordinary SKELETONâ
- Chapter 28: Noahâs Ark
- Chapter 29: âA Cold Wind out of a Dark Cellarâ
- Chapter 30: Sherlock Holmes Ponders a Bone
- Chapter 31: Bursting the Limits of Time
- Chapter 32: Boiling Seas and Exploding Mountains
- Chapter 33: Mayflies and Human History
- Chapter 34: Scattered by Desert Winds
- Chapter 35: Lizards in Scripture?
- Chapter 36: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Chapter 37: Defunct Animals and Open Windows
- Chapter 38: The Mystery of the Moa
- Chapter 39: âThe Invention of Dinosaursâ
- Chapter 40: âWhen Troubles Come, They Come Not Single Spies but in Battalionsâ
- Chapter 41: Return of the Happy World
- Chapter 42: Dinner in a Dinosaur
- Chapter 43: âIt Is Like Confessing a Murderâ
- Epilogue
- Photographs
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Credits
- Copyright