Unearthing the Dragon: The Great Feathered Dinosaur Discovery

Not only is the discovery of feathered dinosaurs in Chinia very interesting but the author gives an excellant discription of life in China and the changes that occurring there. The photography and illustrations throughout the book are beautiful as well. I am looking forward to any new book that the author, Mark Norell, may write.

Unearthing the Dragon by Mark Norell is a delightfully fascinating and compelling read about Norell's experiences with Chinese culture as he travelled about the country studying its vertebrate fossils. There is especially good information and photos of his experiences including China's amazing feathered dinosaurs. This book is highly recommended for dinosaur affecionados both young and old who also would like to visit China through an admiring visitor's eyes. Long term dino fans will remember Norell as one of the principals who discovered oviraptors sitting on their nests of eggs.

Dr. Norell has created an incredible work of non-fiction in this book. His thesis is that birds are in fact the evolutionary descendants of `Feathered Dinosaurs.' This concept was controversial although generally accepted for the past 50 years; yet there was no good paleontological evidence to support the theory. However, Dr. Norell and his colleagues both in America and in China and in several other places around the world have now shown that there is paleontological evidence for feathered dinosaurs. Dr. Norell, "Curator, Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History" has found with his colleagues a paleontological site in NorthEast China known as the "Liaoning" region, specifically the "Jehol Biota." This particular area has incredible fossil records of the Jurassic Period (between about 110 million and 145 million years old). These fossil records clearly show, in beautifully reproduced photographs by Mick Ellison, that clearly both feathered and hairy dinosaurs existed in that period. And additionally, his research indicates that it is almost incontrovertible that feathers and hair were an evolutionary advantage which helped the organism contain body heat. This starts to lead into the topic of actual transition from cold to warm blooded animals. In addition to the science, the book is a wonderful and close up cultural study of China. While China is the next pre-eminent modern society to emerge in our days, their ways and patterns of thought in many ways differ widely from Western thought. In addition, even within China itself, there are differences in behavior and world perspective that are hot issues all over China. The book beautifully describes these cultural aspects in both words and pictures and starts to introduce a very interesting potential humanitarian benefit. As China develops, competition and friction will inevitably evolve between the political components of the United States and China. However, the collegiality of the scientific community, may be one of the most important connections that the United States can maintain with China for mutual benefit. In this manner, perhaps there will be some level of harmony and understanding transmitted on both sides of the ocean. This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the development of dinosaurs, specifically as it relates to them being the ancestors of birds. The author's style is highly inviting, and it reads like a very personal story, rather than as a scientific tome. It is a truly excellent piece of work.

I'm a friend of the author, so the stars may be biased. I'll try to justify those stars, though. The first positive is that the book is beautifully presented, with excellent design, photographs, and drawings. As a previous reviewer mentioned, this would make a superb gift. The second is that it presents its topic - developments over the past decade in paleontology - as a totally human endeavor, including all the errors and frustrations as well as breakthroughs and triumphs. The author makes the point that in his last book he wrote that he hoped that new discoveries would prove all he wrote to be incorrect (which indeed happened), and he hopes that this will again occur with this book. He's comfortable both arguing his position with passion while at the same time accepting that change is inevitable, and new discoveries will render his position invalid and lead to new conclusions. Anyone whose had a great science teacher knows that this attitude is science at it's best, and is especially valuable in an area like paleontology where we know a whole lot less than we don't know. Thirdly, it is especially interesting that all this takes place as a collaboration between East (China) and West, both with long and prestigious, but very different, traditions in paleontology. For those interested in how natural science is REALLY done, this part of the book will be as intruiging as the actual scientific discoveries and conclusions. Most books on China deal with business, cultural, and/or political practices. One would imagine that science is pretty cut and dry, and that scientific "culture shock" between East and West is fairly minimal. This book will convince you otherwise!

The photography and art are incomparable, as are the stories. "Unearthing the Dragon" is an instant classic and an easy and enjoyable read. The authors show their humanity, share their adventures and make science exciting and accessible for everyone. It's this year's gift!