Edward Dolnick

(27) This is a non-fiction account of John Wesley Powell and his expedition's navigation of the uncharted Colorado rapids through the Grand Canyon just after the Civil War. This was the second book in a row I just happened to read about this time period in America. It is interesting to read about the rank and file veterans of the Civil War and how they went on - separate from the story of the politics and the country itself. Exploring the Grand Canyon at this time in history in the context of Darwin's contemporaneous theory of evolution vis a vis a Biblical interpretation of time was interesting to think about. The author did a good job of putting us in the mind of an educated man of the times. The book itself was based on many of the men's journals or their recorded eye witness accounts after the journey. How woefully unprepared they were, the grueling work, the sand, rain, blazing sun, and heart stopping terror of the rapids. I learned a lot about whitewater and found the dramatic tension to be engaging. Powell was remarkable - how did he do it all with one arm?

On the negative side, it was a bit repetitive, They essentially did the same thing over and over again with each rapid being "the worst one yet." I began to flag a bit towards the end despite a brief 300 pages, the book began to feel long. My interest picked up when the party broke up, but unfortunately, there was only so much the author could tell us of the Howland brothers who choose to abandon the expedition at the end.

We bought this book ~ 2 years ago in the gift shop before our mule journey down to Phantom Ranch so the book has some sentimental value. The canyon is awe-inspiring for sure, though I don't find geology as exciting as the author and Powell. I am glad I read it, but honestly - also glad I chose not to do the multi-day river rafting trip on the Colorado back then.… (more)

An interesting read on how people in the Victorian Age "discovered" dinosaurs. Even though bones and footprints had been around before, the interest really began around the early 1800's. It was fun to read how the people of that time tried to reconcile the idea of dinosaurs with their religious beliefs. It led to some quite entertaining theories. Then, along came Darwin and blew all those theories away!
This is not a real scholarly read, you won't learn much about dinosaurs per se, but the social factors are an angle that I had never considered before. The book is an easy read, although somewhat repetitive. It could have used a good, strict editor, and then it would have been a better book.… (more)

My favorite dinosaur was stegosaurus. I had a model stegosaurus on the shelf next to my horse models. Our son’s favorite dinosaur was T-Rex. He had a hundred model dinosaurs if he had one. At age seven, he was so well read on dinosaurs that he amazed a friend who had been on digs in Montana and had amassed an impressive fossil collection. We all thought our son would grow up to become a paleontologist.

What kid hasn’t gone through a dinosaur stage? Author Edward Dolnick had a dinosaur collection, and like our son, drew imagined “epics” of dinosaur battles.

Dolnick wondered what people thought when dinosaur fossils were first being discovered. His deep research is evident in this book.

Dolnick first gives readers a firm understanding of Victorian Age society, religion, and science. His writing is entertaining and the concepts easy to grasp. Then he turns to the people who discovered, and interpreted, fossils.

Dolnick begins with Mary Anning, an impoverished girl who scoured the cliffs of Lyme for fossils to sell to tourists. It was dangerous work. Mary became an expert on her finds. Sadly, as a woman with no influence or class rank, she was sidelined.

Natural History was a Victorian fad. They loved to collect everything, including plants, shells, butterflies, and fossils. Any man with a few dollars in his pocket and social rank became a fossil hunter.

Geologist William Buckland discovered Megalosaurus. He also proposed that fossilized animals were killed in the biblical flood until a find made him reject his own theory and he embraced Louis Agassiz’s theory of ice ages. It was glaciers, not floods, that had killed these animals off. Cuvier also thought that catastrophes had killed these animals.

The Victorians contorted scientific discoveries to fit into their Christian worldview. The discovery of dinosaur bones had people scrambling to conform science to faith. They imagined the fossils had been unicorns, Goliaths, and dragons. Fossils were not really old, they just looked it, “like pre-distressed jeans.” Mammoths were not a separate creature, they were just big elephants. Thomas Jefferson, who had a huge collection of fossils, was sure that the wilds of America would reveal that these animals were not extinct, but alive and still living in America. Jefferson believed that creation was a perfect machine and if one cog or link disappeared, it would all fall apart. (We were priviledged to view Jefferson’s personal collection at the Franklin Institute!)

But new discoveries challenged the old paradigm. The “possibility that a species could go extinct was to suggest that God’s creation was flawed,” that God made imperfect creatures, and that perhaps the world was not made for mankind.

These colorful characters and the rivalry between them make for great reading. Buckland was a strange gourmand, trying out every creature at the dinner table. (His guests were not always amused.) Gideon Mantell went into the field and amassed a huge fossil collection, but economics forced him to sell, while Richard Owen, who never put spade to rock to find a single fossil, claimed the spotlight as the foremost dinosaur expert. Dolnick compares Owen to Uriah Heep in appearance, and as “brilliant, backstabbing, charming and manipulative.” It was Owen who came up with the name ‘dinosaur.’

The book closes with a famous dinner in the Crystal Palace where diners sat inside a replica of a dinosaur. Those crazy Victorians.

When Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859, he started a revolution in science, proving that species did change and die off. Owen was ‘banished to history’s attic.”

It is an immensely entertaining book while also informative.

I previously read the author’s book The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.… (more)