THE MONSTER'S BONES

The story of the world’s most iconic dinosaur.

The central human figure in this book is a man named Barnum Brown (1873-1963), who transcended his humble upbringing on a Kansas farm to become one of the nation’s most accomplished paleontologists. Reuters senior reporter Randall, author of Black Death at the Golden Gate, among other books, offers an astute and entertaining account of Brown’s indefatigable pursuit of fossils and the intense competition he entered into with rival hunters. The author sets Brown’s major discoveries against a broader consideration of the cultural significance of his greatest find, in 1900: the first partial skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, “the largest known predator in Earth’s history.” Randall carefully outlines the shifts in scientific understanding prompted by the appearance of this “monster,” and he makes a persuasive case for its profound impact on our conception of the history of life on Earth. As he notes, “the thud with which its discovery landed and shifted our understanding of ourselves and our planet reverberates still.” The author vividly renders the early and ongoing commercial appeal of T. rex, and a prominent theme is the often contentious intersection of science and big business in the fossil trade: Museums and private collectors began to contend fiercely for specimens in the late 19th century, with the fearsome T. rex becoming, after Brown’s discovery, the most prized target. Also memorable are Randall’s investigations of some of the most colorful personalities in the burgeoning field of dinosaur studies, including the infamous combatants in the so-called Bone Wars, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, whose struggles for personal distinction were often outrageously unscrupulous. In the epilogue, Randall charts the dramatic growth of the T. rex industry over the past century or so, underscoring the importance of Brown’s pioneering efforts.

An absorbing account of early dinosaur discoveries and their cultural legacies.