A Gathering of Wonders

A Gathering of Wonders
Behind the Scenes at the American Museum of Natural History

I can't begin to enumerate all the riches, tidbits, stories, information, personalities, gossip, and love of science embraced by this fascinating volume about the Museum and its collections, its history, and all its backroom maneuverings... Mr. Wallace cares about small mammals and weird fishes, bats and box turtles, and everything in between, including the future of the planet.

From the foreword by John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War
and many other books.

Birds so beautiful that the first men to see them thought they were messengers from heaven. The largest, most spectacular star sapphire ever found. Eighteen million insects and spiders. Meteorites that came into being at the very birth of our solar system. An awe-inspiring array of the greatest, fiercest, and strangest dinosaurs ever to stalk across the face of the earth. And so much more.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is home to a plethora of the most beautiful, most important, and most bizarre scientific treasures on display anywhere. Its dinosaurs, insects, birds, mammals, and human creations tell the fascinating story of life on earth, while its incomparable gems, minerals, and meteorites reveal remarkable insights into our four-billion-year-old planet itself. Even the casual visitor could spend days exploring the glories to be found within the Museum's walls.

?But as riveting as the museum's treasures are, the scientists and explorers who have spent the past 130 years building its collections have been just as fascinating and unpredictable. In A Gathering of Wonders you will meet, among dozens of others:

Carl Akeley, the visionary conservationist who gave his life seeking to protect the endangered mountain gorilla.
Mary Cynthia Dickerson, a forgotten pioneer, who fought personal tragedy and the roadblocks facing women scientists at the dawn of the 20th century to become a brilliant curator, writer, editor, and photographer.
Richard Van Gelder, a brilliant mammalogist and one of only four men to build a whale. ("Only two of us are still alive," he commented. "I wouldn't recommend it.")
Childs Frick, the mysterious financier whose fossil hunters found more ancient mammals than anyone else on earthñbut who weren't allowed to breathe a word of their finds to anyone.
David Grimaldi, explorer of the most delicate and beautiful fossils of all: creatures trapped forever in jewels of ancient amber.
Laurel Kendall, an anthropologist who stepped inside the magical, threatened world of Korean shamans, and returned with a myriad of enthralling stories to tell.

Filled with never-before-told stories and vivid portraits of the Museum's most fascinating personalities, and accompanied by sixteen pages of photographs, A Gathering of Wonders takes readers on a journey through the Museum, through the natural history of our world, and through the history of science itself. "A Gathering of Wonders is a great animated guidebook and history to read before you go to New York," says John Nichols. "In fact, it will make you want to goóI promise.