Beasts of Eden : Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, and Other Enigmas of Mammal Evolution

Mammals first evolved at about the same time as dinosaurs, and their story is perhaps the more fascinating of the two--in part because it is also our own story. In this literate and entertaining book, eminent naturalist David Rains Wallace brings the saga of ancient mammals to a general audience for the first time. Using artist Rudolph Zallinger's majestic The Age of Mammals mural at the Peabody Museum as a frame for his narrative, Wallace deftly moves over varied terrain--drawing from history, science, evolutionary theory, and art history--to present a lively account of fossil discoveries and an overview of what those discoveries have revealed about early mammals and their evolution. In these pages we encounter towering mammoths, tiny horses, giant-clawed ground sloths, whales with legs, uintatheres, zhelestids, and other exotic extinct creatures as well as the scientists who discovered and wondered about their remains. We meet such memorable figures as Georges Cuvier, Richard Owen, Edward D. Cope, George Gaylord Simpson, and Stephen Jay Gould and learn of their heated disputes, from Cuvier's and Owen's fights with early evolutionists to present controversies over the Late Cretaceous mass extinction. Wallace's own lifelong interest in evolution is reflected in the book's evocative and engaging style and in the personal experiences he expertly weaves into the tale, providing an altogether expansive perspective on what Darwin described as the "grandeur" of evolution.

"Beasts of Eden is a wondrous journey through the vanished worlds of extinct mammals. Exciting, insightful, and accurate, it is everything that good science writing should be."—Tim Flannery, author of The Eternal Frontier

"A compelling scientific adventure story. . .. Peopled with colorful and larger-than-life characters, this account of the history of paleontology dramatically demonstrates how the interactions between crude but charismatic fossil seekers, ascetic intellectuals, temperamental artists, and many others have forever changed the ways in which we view life's prehistoric beginnings."—Ian Tattersall, author of The Monkey in the Mirror

"Beasts of Eden is a true delight. Each page drips with the drama and passion of scientific pursuit. Wallace is a keen observer, a learned writer, and a great story teller—this is a must read!"—Don Johanson, Director of the
Institute of Human Origins

The New York Times - Helen E. Fisher

David Rains Wallace, a science writer with 15 books to his credit, offers no original theories on mammalian evolution in Beasts of Eden. Instead, he presents a thoroughly researched, richly detailed and lively book on the ''bone hunters'' who traversed the badlands of the world searching for the fossils of mammals and on the vituperative intellectual battles that some of these paleontologists waged with one another. And as these stories unfold, one becomes familiar with the primary ideas and events in the rise of modern evolutionary thinking.

Front......Page 1 contents......Page 10 illustrations......Page 12 acknowledgments......Page 14 prologue - The Fresco and the Fossil......Page 16 1 - Pachyderms in the Catacombs......Page 30 2 - Doctor Jekyll and the Stonesfield Jaws......Page 43 3 - The Origin of Mammals......Page 54 4 - The Noblest Conquest......Page 70 5 - Terrible Horns and Heavy Feet......Page 83 6 - Mr. Megatherium versus Professor Mylodon......Page 99 7 - Fire Beasts of the Antipodes......Page 108 8 - Titans on Parade......Page 120 9 - Five-Toed Horses and Missing Links......Page 133 10 - The Invisible Dawn Man......Page 144 11 - A Bonaparte of Beasts......Page 152 12 - Love and Theory......Page 164 13 - Simpson’s Cynodont-to-Smilodon Synthesis......Page 174 14 - Shifting Ground......Page 186 15 - Dissolving Ancestries......Page 195 16 - Exploding Faunas......Page 205 17 - The Revenge of the Shell Hunters......Page 217 18 - Simpson Redivivus......Page 227 19 - Wind Thieves of the Kyzylkum......Page 236 20 - The Serpent’s Offering......Page 245 21 - Anthropoid Leapfrog......Page 262 epilogue - Cenozoic Parks......Page 278 notes......Page 290 select bibliogr aphy......Page 326 index......Page 344 Annotation A general interest exploration of mammal evolution and the scientific history of major fossil discoveries, their discoverers, and changing ideas about these extinct "beasts."It's both a grand mystery and a Cinderella story: mammal origins were one of 19th-century science's major enigmas, and mammals outlasted the more abundant dinosaurs to give birth to us THE MOST STRIKING FIGURE IN the Peabody's Age of Mammals comes toward the end, among the Ice Age's brilliant foliage.