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THE MONSTER'S BONES

THE DISCOVERY OF T. REX AND HOW IT SHOOK OUR WORLD

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

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.

Pub Date: June 7, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-324-00653-4

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: March 18, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022

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ELON MUSK

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.

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A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.

To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.

Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023

ISBN: 9781982181284

Page Count: 688

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023

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SILENT SPRING

The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!

It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.

Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.

The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!  

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962

ISBN: 061825305X

Page Count: 378

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962

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