The I Index

The Monster’s Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World

Maybe someday

41

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

30/100

Critics

53/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

David K. Randall

Publisher:

W. W. Norton & Company

Date:

June 7, 2022

A narrative of a fearless paleontologist, the founding of America's most loved museums, and the race to find the largest dinosaurs on record.

What The Reviewers Say

Becky Libourel Diamond,
BookPage
... thrilling.
Jeffrey Meyer,
Library Journal
Randall successfully writes the human story behind the discovery of dinosaurs; a book that will delight readers of science and history..
Steve Brusatte,
The Atlantic
Randall brings alive that swashbuckling time at the turn of the 20th century, when dinosaurs were still a relatively new concept, and the science of paleontology a weapon as America’s wealthiest men and institutions jostled for power in the waning days of the Gilded Age. Randall combines his journalist’s eye for details with a storyteller’s flair for spectacle. His tale is as rollicking as a Western—and in many senses, it is one. It tells of an age when paleontology was woven into the fabric of the American frontier, scientists reached the field by stagecoach and Pullman car, and literal cowboys collected dinosaur bones from the badlands, in service of the East Coast gentry. Along the way, Randall grapples with a profound question: Should fossils be treated as commodities?.

Kirkus
... an astute and entertaining account of Brown’s indefatigable pursuit of fossils and the intense competition he entered into with rival hunters.