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Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle by Lukas Rieppel
doloresofcourse's review against another edition
5.0
If you going into this knowing that there is very little discussion about dinosaurs and paleontology, you will enjoy it more. This book is about how the rich of the Gilded Age shaped shaped museums and scientific institutions. Dinosaur bones are the currency of this book. The history of the dinosaur fossil trade and how it drove the creation of museums specifically for their display and public admiration is very interesting, but what I thought I was getting when I started this. The main dinosaur discussions are at the beginning and at the end. In the last chapter, there's an interesting discussion about how China has become the new fossil hotbed and some of the very cool discoveries that have been made there.
trike's review against another edition
3.0
All these books that have the same date for the summer of ‘22 are because I was locked out of Goodreads and didn’t note the day I read the books.
libra17's review against another edition
5.0
Assembling the Dinosaur was an interesting dive into a part of dinosaurs that I hadn't ever considered before: their economic and sociopolitical significance, especially during the Gilded Age and early 20th century, and how that shaped how fossils were viewed, treated, and used. The material and writing was a bit dry, but topic itself was great and I finished the book feeling like I'd learned (or, at least, needed to reconsider) a lot. This is a book that I'm happy to have stumbled across while browsing.
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