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Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs

Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs

by Dennis R. Dean
Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs

Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs

by Dennis R. Dean

Overview

Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs is a scholarly yet accessible biography—the first in a generation—of a pioneering dinosaur hunter and scholar. Gideon Mantell discovered the Iguanodon (a famous tale set right in this book) and several other dinosaur species, spent over twenty-five years restoring Iguanodon fossils, and helped establish the idea of an Age of Reptiles that ended with their extinction at the conclusion of the Mesozoic Era. He had significant interaction with such well-known figures as James Parkinson, Georges Cuvier, Charles Lyell, Roderick Murchison, Charles Darwin, and Richard Owen. Dennis Dean, a well-known scholar of geology and the Victorian era, here places Mantell's career in its cultural context, employing original research in archives throughout the world, including the previously unexamined Mantell family papers in New Zealand.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780521088176
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 10/30/2008
Pages: 312
Product dimensions: 5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

1. Castle Place; 2. Oryctology; 3. Fossils of the South Downs; 4. Iguanodon; 5. The geology of Sussex; 6. Hylaeosaurus; 7. Old Steine; 8. Wonders of geology; 9. Crescent Lodge; 10. Medals of creation; 11. Chester Square; 12. Petrifactions and Their Teachings; Epilogue: Norwood Park; Notes; Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"...a valuable addition to the historical literature of geology. ...a work that must take its place within any library—institutional or private—that aspires to reflect nineteenth-century progress in the earth sciences." ISIS

"Dean's thorough, occasionally exhausting, fascinating biography includes correspondence, publications, and other sources by contemporaries of Mantell, with clashes of scientific competition, friendships, and animosities, to show how the understanding of numerous animals discovered in the early 19th century was affected by overall knowledge of life in the past. Good history and a good read." Choice

"This engaging historical account of Gideon Mantell's career in paleontology is one of the finest scientific biographies to come along in recent years...richly laden with details and tidbits of information...your knowledge of dinosaur science will be stranded in the land of 'myth' unless you have this valuable reference." Dinosaur World

"Dennis Dean's book presents a vast amount of new information about Gideon Mantell, derived from personal diaries, newspapers, letters, family papers etc., and brings his life and achievements into focus...recommend[ed] to anyone interested in the early history of geology and paleontology." New Zealand Journal of Geology & Geophysics

"...Dean's book does achieve it's broadest goal, which is to reassert the breadth and depth of Gideon Mantell's contributions to historical geology and paleontology. It does so in a very readable text, with extensive and detailed documentation in the footnotes." Palaios

"Gideon Algeron Mantell is so major a figure in the history of geology that a new biographical treatment is overdue...The appearance of this new account of Matell must thus be welcomed, especially when so much of it is based upon primary sources not hitheto available to scientific historians.There is indeed much here that is both useful and interesting...destined to remain of long-term importance." Earth Science History 2000

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