Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party

暢銷書《宇宙的鐘擺》作者愛德華·多爾尼克(Edward Dolnick)再度以令人讚嘆的說故事天賦，為我們講述那些發現恐龍化石、從而徹底改變人類歷史認知的古怪維多利亞時代人物的故事。

十九世紀初，人們普遍認為自然界是個安全又舒適的地方。然而，在美國麻州，一個十二歲的農場男孩偶然發現一排化石化的三趾腳印，每個腳印都像餐盤一樣大——這是史上首次發現的恐龍足跡。不久之後，英國的科學家們也挖掘出一個相當成年男人從地面到頭部高的大骨頭。除了神話和童話故事之外，當時沒有人想像得到像三趾巨人這樣的生物曾經在陸地上行走，更沒有人想過它們可能在數億年前就已全部消失。

在《晚宴上的恐龍》中，著名的說書人兼歷史學家愛德華·多爾尼克帶領我們經歷一場引人入勝的真實冒險。我們將見證十九世紀初的古生物學家們如何費盡心思，從化石紀錄中拼湊出我們今天所熟知的恐龍故事。這個故事始於瑪麗·安寧(Mary Anning)，一個貧窮、沒有受過教育的女人，她憑著與生俱來的直覺，在懸崖深處尋找化石；接著是威廉·巴克蘭(William Buckland)，一位古怪的地質學家，他把家裡堆滿了各種標本，並因在一處洞穴內從化石紀錄中拼湊出史前場景而聞名；然後是備受爭議、當時最知名的科學家理查·歐文(Richard Owen)，正是他創造了「dinosaur」(恐龍)這個詞。

這本《晚宴上的恐龍》充滿活力、有趣、博學，且主角陣容都不是大人物，卻將偶然發現的史前生物，如何徹底顛覆了人類對世界及其自身地位的理解成功串連起來，精采無比。

恐龍迷、喜愛人類歷史與考古知識的讀者，不可錯過。

From the bestselling author of The Clockwork Universe and The Writing of the Gods, an “utterly delightful…hugely entertaining” (Air Mail) book about the eccentric Victorians who discovered dinosaur bones, leading to a whole new understanding of human history.

In the early 1800s the natural world was a safe and cozy place, or so people believed. But then a twelve-year-old farm boy in Massachusetts stumbled on a row of fossilized three-toed footprints the size of dinner plates—the first dinosaur tracks ever found. Soon, in England, scientists unearthed enormous bones that reached as high as a man’s head. Outside of myths and fairy tales, no one had even imagined that creatures like three-toed giants had once lumbered across the land—nor dreamed that they could all have vanished, hundreds of millions years ago.

In Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the early 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today. The tale begins with Mary Anning, a poor, uneducated woman who had a sixth sense for finding fossils buried deep inside cliffs; moves to William Buckland, an eccentric geologist who filled his home with specimens and famously pieced together a prehistoric scene from the fossil record inside a cave; and then on to the controversial Richard Owen, the era’s best-known scientist, and the one who coined the term “dinosaur.”

“Exuberant” (Kirkus Reviews), entertaining, erudite, and featuring an unconventional cast of characters, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party tells the story of how the accidental discovery of prehistoric creatures upended humanity’s understanding of the world and its own place within it.