House of Lost Worlds: Dinosaurs, Dynasties, and the Story of Life on Earth - Softcover

What do you hope readers will learn from their encounter with your book?
I want readers to come away feeling that this is a ripping good yarn of exploration, with big engaging characters taking enormous risks and bringing back great discoveries that make us think in new ways about the world.
 
If you were to embark on an expedition with one of the scientists you discuss, who would that be?
It would be the 1870 expedition by paleontologist O. C. Marsh and a dozen Yale students into an American West that was still wild, still home to millions of bison, still under the control of Native American tribes. That expedition launched Marsh’s remarkable career, bringing to life unimaginable creatures from lost worlds. And it opened the eyes of a bottom-of-the-class Yale graduate named George Bird Grinnell, who went on to become one of the most influential figures in the American conservation movement, a savior of the bison, and an anthropologist of vanishing tribal cultures.
 
Which scientists intrigued or surprised you the most?
James Dwight Dana and his poignant struggle to reconcile his commitment to science with his deep religious faith. Dana was among the first people to whom Darwin confided about his work on the theory of evolution by natural selection. (“I groan when I make such a confession,” he wrote to Dana.) Dana’s struggle took place as the scientists of the Peabody Museum were delivering to his doorstep convincing fossil evidence.

Richard Conniff is a prize-winning science writer and journalist and the author of nine books including The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth. He lives in Old Lyme, CT.