Product Description

The story of two nineteenth-century scientists who revealed one of the most significant and exciting events in the natural history of this planet: the existence of dinosaurs. In "The Dinosaur Hunters", Deborah Cadbury brilliantly recreates the remarkable story of the bitter rivalry between two men: Gideon Mantell uncovered giant bones in a Sussex quarry, became obsessed with the lost world of the reptiles and was driven to despair. Richard Owen, a brilliant anatomist, gave the extinct creatures their name and secured for himself unrivalled international acclaim.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83730 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It may seem surprising but dinosaurs are actually a British "invention" of the early 19th century. The name dinosaur was coined in 1842 by an English anatomist Richard Owen, a highly ambitious, machiavellian schemer and villain of Deborah Cadbury's The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World. Her hero is Gideon Mantell, a practising doctor, who found and first described many of the bones of the beasts that subsequently became known as dinosaurs. Full of quotes from contemporary sources, The Dinosaur Hunters brilliantly evokes the Dickensian world of early Victorian science and society. From Mary Anning, the self-taught fossil hunter of Lyme Regis to the academic and deeply eccentric Dean Buckland of Oxford University, the story tells of reputations made and lost as self-help, self-promotion, over-wheening pride, folly and social climbing all played their part in the emerging story of the geological past. The dinosaurs, although central to the story, are also a vehicle for the much larger, more interesting and important story about the struggle to understand the meaning of fossils and what they tell us about prehistory. Deborah Cadbury, an award-winning TV science producer and acclaimed author of The Feminisation of Nature has thoroughly researched her topic and steeped herself in the intricacies of the scientific debates of the time. With black and white illustrations, extensive notes, a bibliography and index, the result is one of the best popular science histories. --Douglas Palmer.

Review
'No other narrative I know illustrates the human element in scientific discovery quite so dramatically.' Richard Fortey, Evening Standard 'This is a tale of intrigue and deception, of burning ambition and failed dreams. The bitter clashes between the men who dominated 19th- century geology are exquisitely portrayed by Deborah Cadbury in this scholarly yet exhilarating book.' Independent 'This is a story we should all know, a defining part of contemporary western culture. I can't think of a better introduction.' Sunday Times 'This is a wonderful book, evoking a time when science required remarkable people to conduct it.' Observer 'This is a story we should all know, a defining part of contemporary Western culture. I can't think of a better introduction.' Sunday Times

From the award-winning author of The Feminisation of Nature comes The Dinosaur Hunters (A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World). This account chronicles the hopes, speculation and setbacks experienced by amateurs and experts alike in the early part of the 19th century, when they began discovering evidence of the prehistoric era. They gradually found out that fossil creatures were very different from any living animals and therefore had a highly significant bearing on history. Written from the perspective of the knowledge at the time, Cadbury describes scientists puzzling over fossilized bones, and struggling to form a coherent theory for their presence. Several characters were instrumental in these momentous finds in various parts of the English countryside. In Lyme Regis an amateur fossil-hunter, Mary Anning, found a ready market for the many specimens she discovered on the beaches and cliffs. An Oxford naturalist, the Reverend WIlliam Buckland, was researching fossil remains, but the interpretation of his findings was often distorted by his religious beliefs. Although a competent geologist, he rejected evolutionary theories and felt obliged to make his finds fit into the accepted biblical wisdom of the Deluge and Creation. A naturalist, Gideon Mantell, a Sussex doctor, strove for years to overcome prejudice and the snobbish attitudes of the elitist scientific fraternity before he finally managed to convince his fellow scientists that a giant herbivorous lizard once roamed around the English countryside. However, it was Richard Owen, an unscrupulous anatomist who managed to insinuate himself into the best circles, who employed all the hard-earned knowledge to his own disadvantage and unfairly was credited with the discovery of the dinosaurs. This book gives a fascinating insight into the drawing of knowledge about prehistoric times. (Kirkus UK)

Sunday Times
'This is a story we should all know, a defining part of contemporary western culture. I can't think of a better introduction.'

Customer Reviews

Putting Flesh on the Bones
The Dinosaur Hunters tells the story of the pioneers of dinosaur discovery in England. These were a mixed bunch indeed, and this is what I found truly fascinating. That Mary Anning, a woman on the poverty line, could play as big a part as Gideon Mantell and establisment figure Richard Owen is extraordinary.

We take the dinosaurs for granted these days, and it is easy to forget that nobody had much of a clue what they would have looked like or what size they were after finding the first few bones. The book brings this discovery to life and puts the flesh on the bones, so to speak.

It's a great human and scientific story - and this juxtaposition is what makes the book gripping.

A Great Story Well Told
I've read quite a few of the current slew of books attempting to popularise science in the wake of Dava Sobel's Longitude, but I think this is the best. Not only is it a gripping drama with a wonderful parade of characters, and tragedies and triumphs galore, but more importantly it covers the most dramatic change in our perception of ourselves and the world. Consider: at the start of the book in the early nineteenth century religion still reigned supreme, the Bible was the literal truth, and the study of what came to be known as geology and biology was the province of enthusiastic amateurs. But then, from the cliffs of Lyme Regis and from the quarries used to provide the stones for the growth of the new industrial towns and cities came these extraordinary fossils, these remains of the most incredible animals, plus clear evidence for those who could see of the unimagineable lengths of time involved in the formation of the various strata of rocks in which these remains were embedded. The resulting debate was surely one of the most momentous in scientific history, culminating in the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. I think Cadbury tells the story superbly. I particularly enjoyed the way the story starts in Jane Austen territory - Lyme Regis, early years of the century, keen young doctors and clergymen collecting plants and fossils - and then as it centres more on London gets darker, entering the familiar world of Dickens, with child deaths, disfigurements, and the crushing of hope beneath the merciless wheels of ruthless ambitions etc. etc.. Great stuff.

Reviving a long lost fascination.
35 years ago I loved dinosaurs. Then I grew up a bit. I forgot that I was fascinated by pictures of a world long lost. Now I have a four year old son and guess what? He loves dinosaurs.
Sitting with him looking at pictures like the ones I looked at as a child has seen my fascination resurface but, hopefully, along more adult lines.
I wanted to find out more of the history of paleontology and the early pioneers of the science. This book fits the bill admirably. It binds together and winds between the lives of some of the earliest fossil hunters from Mary Anning, digging to live, to the French scientist Cuvier, at the peak of his fame and courted around the world. The Machevellian political manouevres of Richard Owen and the obsessive devotion to science of Gideon Mantell.
The first half of the nineteenth century was an era of momentous change in Britain and the world with industrial revolution and theories of evolution profoundly challenging the way we look at the world we inhabit. This book neatly sets out the role the new science of geology played in that time.