The Dragon Seekers: How An Extraordinary Circle of Fossilists Discovered the Dinosaurs and Paved the Way for Darwin - Softcover

Christopher McGowan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0738206733 ISBN 13: 9780738206738

Publisher: Perseus Publishing, 2002

Synopsis

Against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution, an extraordinary circle of fossilists struggled to make sense of a mysterious, prehistoric world--a world they had to piece together from the fossilized and often fragmentary remains of animals never before seen. In this transporting, seamlessly written book, Christopher McGowan takes us back to a time when geology and paleontology were as young and vibrant as genetic engineering is today. The nineteenth-century pioneers of these new disciplines were an eccentric lot, from different social classes and sexes, with a range of motivations in fossil hunting. These "Dragon Seekers" sought to persuade a populace raised on a literal interpretation of Genesis that the ground they walked was once a very frightening and unfamiliar place. A sweeping narrative history, The Dragon Seekers shows how these remarkable characters forever changed our interpretation of the world and its inhabitants.

About this title

Review

In The Dragon Seekers, Chris McGowan takes us through the 19th century social world of Jane Austen into that of Charles Dickens and sets the scene in which Charles Darwin grew up both physically and intellectually. McGowan brilliantly introduces the arcane world of early 19th century rocks and fossils for the general reader. Here the main characters are not just the human ones, such as the famous Anning family of Lyme Regis and the eccentric Dr Buckland of Oxford University but also the monsters of the real Jurassic Park with all those unpronounceable names; the extinct sea dragons such as Ichthyosaurus and dinosaurs such as Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus.

The Dragon Seekers shows how history was made by unlikely people such as the working class professional collectors who even risked their lives to recover fossils from storm battered treacherous cliffs around Britain's coasts. The Anning's stomping ground of Lyme Regis has just been recognised as a World Heritage Site and, as McGowan tells us, is still searched by intrepid fossil hunters. The extraordinary story of how, where and by whom they were discovered makes for excellent reading in the expert hands of Chris McGowan. McGowan is a professional academic fossilist in Canada and has written several successful popular books on fossils such as The Raptor and the Lamb and Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea Dragons. Nicely illustrated with lots of evocative contemporary prints, good notes, further reading and index, The Dragon Seekers is a great read for anyone interested in the 19th century, British social history, evolution, dinosaurs and fossils in general. --Douglas Palmer

Review

A most valuable guide to the mysteries of our own past. I warmly recommend it to all who wonder whence our modern world developed (John Fowles)

An informative and exciting account...there is an affecting lyrical beauty to McGowan's historical account (LOS ANGELES TIMES)

[McGowan] writes with livliness and immediacy. The excitement those early 'dragon seeker s' must have felt when making a particularly significant discovery is well-conveyed. (IRISH TIMES)

The book does a good job of lifting the lid on what seemed like an intriguing sideline at the time, but eventually became one of the most important cornerstones of our current understanding of the natural world. (FOCUS)

Edition details

• Publisher: Perseus Publishing
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0738206733
• ISBN 13: 9780738206738
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 254