Foreword by Matthew C. Lamanna New Afterword by Tom Rea Less than one hundred years ago, Diplodocus carnegii—named after industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie—was the most famous dinosaur on the planet. The most complete fossil skeleton unearthed to date, and one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered, Diplodocus was displayed in a dozen museums around the world and viewed by millions of people. Bone Wars explains how a fossil unearthed in the badlands of Wyoming in 1899 helped give birth to the public’s fascination with prehistoric beasts. Rea also traces the evolution of scientific thought regarding dinosaurs and reveals the double-crosses and behind-the-scenes deals that marked the early years of bone hunting. With the help of letters found in scattered archives, Tom Rea recreates a remarkable story of hubris, hope, and turn-of-the-century science. He focuses on the roles of five men: Wyoming fossil hunter Bill Reed; paleontologists Jacob Wortman—in charge of the expedition that discovered Carnegie’s dinosaur—and John Bell Hatcher; William Holland, imperious director of the recently founded Carnegie Museum; and Carnegie himself, smitten with the colossal animals after reading a story in the New York Journal and Advertiser. What emerges is the picture of an era reminiscent of today: technology advancing by leaps and bounds; the press happy to sensationalize anything that turned up; huge amounts of capital ending up in the hands of a small number of people; and some devoted individuals placing honest research above personal gain.

In the 1880s, science witnessed a major shift: Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution. People dug up the first dinosaur fossils. And the field of paleontology—the study of ancient plants and animals—emerged. Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope became enthralled with these new ideas, discoveries, and developments. Both were determined to become world-famous paleontologists. When they met in 1863, they started off as friends. But within a few years, competition drove the men apart. Each fought bitterly to discover more fossils, name more species, and publish more papers than the other. In their haste to outdo each other, they both produced some shoddy work. The resulting confusion took many years to discover and correct, and their toxic relationship crippled the field of paleontology for decades afterward. However, the competition also produced a wealth of fossils. These laid a firm foundation for the field of paleontology and supported Darwin's theory of evolution. Marsh's and Cope's discoveries generated keen public interest in prehistoric life and rich data for future generations of paleontologists. This book explores the great rivalry between Marsh and Cope, showing how it brought out the best and the worst in them—while bringing humankind a brand-new view of life on Earth.

Montana, 1876. Othniel Charles Marsh, one of the two top paleontologists in the world, in the state's Judith River fossil beds, doing what he does best: digging up the bones of dinosaurs. Montana is a big state, but Marsh can't rest easy. Edward Drinker Cope, his biggest rival, and the other top paleontologist in the world, is also in the area, and there simply aren't enough bones for both of them, leading them to play dirty tricks. And time itself is against them: the fierce snows of winter are on the way and, rumor has it, so is Sitting Bull, fresh from his triumph at little Big Horn.Another complication: two foreign scientists are also competing for the bones. One says he's from Sweden, the other says he's from Iceland. One of them enlists Cope to help him, while the other befriends Marsh.Marsh and Cope don't want the fossils to leave the country, so they decide to bury the hatchet and work together to outwit the visitors. This turns out to be harder than they thought. The foreign scientists possess amazing technology, but that's because they are much more foreign than they claimed. They don't just want to take the bones out of the country -- they're fighting over who will get to take them clean off the planet.... . . a political thriller set in an alternate USA . . . humor . . . plenty of action. . . . -- Locus. . . a humorously insightful parody of human nature. His writing style is fantastic and his puns with names are a delight. . . . -- Southern Book Trade

In the mid-1870s, young teenage scout Thad Longsworth, blood brother to the Sioux visionary Black Elk, finds his destiny linked with that of three rival teams of paleontologists searching for dinosaur bones, as the Great Plains Indians prepare to go to war against the white man.

In this 2018 New York Times Notable Book,Paige Williams "does for fossils what Susan Orlean did for orchids" (Book Riot) in her account of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia--a story "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics" (Rebecca Skloot). In 2012, a New York auction catalogue boasted an unusual offering: "a superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton." In fact, Lot 49135 consisted of a nearly complete T. bataar, a close cousin to the most famous animal that ever lived. The fossils now on display in a Manhattan event space had been unearthed in Mongolia, more than 6,000 miles away. At eight-feet high and 24 feet long, the specimen was spectacular, and when the gavel sounded the winning bid was over $1 million. Eric Prokopi, a thirty-eight-year-old Floridian, was the man who had brought this extraordinary skeleton to market. A onetime swimmer who spent his teenage years diving for shark teeth, Prokopi's singular obsession with fossils fueled a thriving business hunting, preparing, and selling specimens, to clients ranging from natural history museums to avid private collectors like actor Leonardo DiCaprio. But there was a problem. This time, facing financial strain, had Prokopi gone too far? As the T. bataar went to auction, a network of paleontologists alerted the government of Mongolia to the eye-catching lot. As an international custody battle ensued, Prokopi watched as his own world unraveled. In the tradition of The Orchid Thief, The Dinosaur Artist is a stunning work of narrative journalism about humans' relationship with natural history and a seemingly intractable conflict between science and commerce. A story that stretches from Florida's Land O' Lakes to the Gobi Desert, The Dinosaur Artist illuminates the history of fossil collecting--a murky, sometimes risky business, populated by eccentrics and obsessives, where the lines between poacher and hunter, collector and smuggler, enthusiast and opportunist, can easily blur. In her first book, Paige Williams has given readers an irresistible story that spans continents, cultures, and millennia as she examines the question of who, ultimately, owns the past.

Wallace explores in exciting detail the rivalry between the paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Onthniel Charles Marsh--19th-century America's major scientific feud. Cope and Marsh independently discovered hundreds of dinosaur fossils on the high plains when the Indian wars were in full swing.

The tale of the epic rivalry between two foundational paleontologists to find bigger and better bones in the American West, perfect for readers of Steve Sheinkin and Candace Fleming. Today we take for granted the idea that dinosaurs once roamed the earth. But two hundred years ago, the very concept of an extinct species did not exist. When an English scientist proposed in 1841 that Dino Saurs ("terrible lizards") had come and gone, it was only a theory, a new way of explaining the "dragon" and "giant" bones scattered across the globe. But when proof turned up seventeen years later, it was not only incontrovertible; it was massive. Tooth and Claw tells the story of the feverish race between two brilliant, driven, and insanely competitive scientists--Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh--to uncover more and more monstrous fossils in the newly opened Wild West. Between them, they discovered dozens of major dinosaur species and established the new discipline of paleontology in America. But their bitter thirty-year rivalry--a "war" waged on wild plains and mountains, in tabloid newsprint, and in Congress--dramatically wrecked their professional and private lives even as it brought alive for the public a vanished prehistoric world.