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The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy
New Yorker staff writer Paige Williams delves into the world of the international fossil trade through the true story of one man's devastating attempt to sell a Gobi Desert dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia, a nation that forbids trafficking in natural history.
The first time Eric Prokopi saw T. bataar bones he was impressed. The enormous skull and teeth betrayed the apex predators close relation to the storied Tyrannosaurus rex, the most famous animal that ever lived. Prokopi's obsession with fossils had begun decades earlier, when he was a Florida boy scouring for shark teeth and Ice Age remnants, and it had continued as he built a thriving business hunting, preparing, and selling specimens to avid collectors and private museums around the world. To scientists' fury and dismay, there was big money to be made in certain corners of the fossil trade. Prokopi didn't consider himself merely a businessman, though. He also thought of himself as a vital part of paleontology--as one of the lesser-known artistic links in bringing prehistoric creatures back to life--and saw nothing wrong with turning a profit in the process. Bone hunting was expensive, risky, controversial work, and he increasingly needed bigger "scores." By the time he acquired a largely complete skeleton of T. bataar and restored it in his workshop, he was highly leveraged and drawing quiet scorn from peers who worried that by bringing such a big, beautiful Mongolian dinosaur to market he would tarnish the entire trade. Presenting the skeleton for sale at a major auction house in New York City, he was relieved to see the bidding start at nearly $1 million---only to fall apart when the president of Mongolia unexpectedly stepped in to question the specimen's origins and demand its return. An international custody battle ensued, shining new light on the black market for dinosaur fossils, the angst of scientists who fear for their field, and the precarious political tensions in post-Communist Mongolia. The Prokopi case, unprecedented in American jurisprudence, continues to reverberate throughout the intersecting worlds of paleontology, museums, art, and geopolitics.
The first time Eric Prokopi saw T. bataar bones he was impressed. The enormous skull and teeth betrayed the apex predators close relation to the storied Tyrannosaurus rex, the most famous animal that ever lived. Prokopi's obsession with fossils had begun decades earlier, when he was a Florida boy scouring for shark teeth and Ice Age remnants, and it had continued as he built a thriving business hunting, preparing, and selling specimens to avid collectors and private museums around the world. To scientists' fury and dismay, there was big money to be made in certain corners of the fossil trade. Prokopi didn't consider himself merely a businessman, though. He also thought of himself as a vital part of paleontology--as one of the lesser-known artistic links in bringing prehistoric creatures back to life--and saw nothing wrong with turning a profit in the process. Bone hunting was expensive, risky, controversial work, and he increasingly needed bigger "scores." By the time he acquired a largely complete skeleton of T. bataar and restored it in his workshop, he was highly leveraged and drawing quiet scorn from peers who worried that by bringing such a big, beautiful Mongolian dinosaur to market he would tarnish the entire trade. Presenting the skeleton for sale at a major auction house in New York City, he was relieved to see the bidding start at nearly $1 million---only to fall apart when the president of Mongolia unexpectedly stepped in to question the specimen's origins and demand its return. An international custody battle ensued, shining new light on the black market for dinosaur fossils, the angst of scientists who fear for their field, and the precarious political tensions in post-Communist Mongolia. The Prokopi case, unprecedented in American jurisprudence, continues to reverberate throughout the intersecting worlds of paleontology, museums, art, and geopolitics.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published September 11, 2018
358 people are currently reading
6436 people want to read
About the author
Paige Williams
2 books30 followersPaige Williams is a staff writer at The New Yorker. At the magazine, her subjects have included suburban politics in Detroit, the death penalty in Alabama, paleoanthropology in South Africa, the misappropriated cultural patrimony of the Tlingit peoples of Alaska, and the White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She won the National Magazine Award for feature writing, in 2008, and was a finalist, in another category, in 2011. Her work has appeared in multiple anthologies of “The Best American Magazine Writing” and “The Best American Crime Writing.” Williams is the Laventhol/Newsday Visiting Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and she has taught at universities including Ole Miss, N.Y.U., and M.I.T., in the Knight Science Journalism program. She has been a fellow of the MacDowell Colony and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. The Dinosaur Artist, her first book, grew out of a 2013 magazine piece, "Bones of Contention."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 444 reviews
September 25, 2018
This book is a true tragedy. There's an awesome story to be told and, eventually, that story is told. There's just way too much extraneous information included in this book to make it worth recommending.
To say that it moves slowly is to say that dinosaurs lived a long time ago.
Just when you think you're getting somewhere and that you have the necessary background to appreciate the complexities of the story, you get taken back on yet another detour.
I wondered if I was the only one who felt this way, so I poked around a few places online and found this NPR review that says it more clearly than I ever could:
"The book does have some flaws. It's as if Williams felt compelled to include every last thing she learned through her research, even beyond the 90 dense pages of footnotes. We don't need to know that Prokopi's mother-in law decorated her home at the holidays with "dense arrangements of aromatic greenery and gilded candlesticks." Even less relevant are weight-related comments: Mongolian activist Oyuna Tsedevdamba is "youthful and slim," and auction broker David Herskowitz walks with "his belly leading."
"More disconcertingly, whenever the Tarbosaurus narrative gathers speed, Williams dumps in a sticky web of new names and facts to keep straight. At one point of real momentum, suddenly we're sent back to 1793 and the life of an English cabinetmaker named Richard Anning. His daughter Mary Anning, a highly skilled collector of invertebrate fossils around Lyme, England, is a compelling figure from the annals of women in science — but overall there are just too many of these jarring time jumps.
The full review is here: https://www.npr.org/2018/09/13/647117....
Proceed at your own risk!
To say that it moves slowly is to say that dinosaurs lived a long time ago.
Just when you think you're getting somewhere and that you have the necessary background to appreciate the complexities of the story, you get taken back on yet another detour.
I wondered if I was the only one who felt this way, so I poked around a few places online and found this NPR review that says it more clearly than I ever could:
"The book does have some flaws. It's as if Williams felt compelled to include every last thing she learned through her research, even beyond the 90 dense pages of footnotes. We don't need to know that Prokopi's mother-in law decorated her home at the holidays with "dense arrangements of aromatic greenery and gilded candlesticks." Even less relevant are weight-related comments: Mongolian activist Oyuna Tsedevdamba is "youthful and slim," and auction broker David Herskowitz walks with "his belly leading."
"More disconcertingly, whenever the Tarbosaurus narrative gathers speed, Williams dumps in a sticky web of new names and facts to keep straight. At one point of real momentum, suddenly we're sent back to 1793 and the life of an English cabinetmaker named Richard Anning. His daughter Mary Anning, a highly skilled collector of invertebrate fossils around Lyme, England, is a compelling figure from the annals of women in science — but overall there are just too many of these jarring time jumps.
The full review is here: https://www.npr.org/2018/09/13/647117....
Proceed at your own risk!
August 7, 2024
Williams is a marvelous writer of paragraphs, and even of chapters: She beautifully captures scenes and characters and issues and history, and her prose sparkles. Nearly any reader will be fascinated by the issues that The Dinosaur Artist raises. And yet the book doesn't quite hold together.
Beginning with the title, the author seems to take New Yorker colleague Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief as a model, and a writer could do far worse. But Williams' central character and his story—as a fossil collector and salesman who gets caught—simply aren't compelling enough to carry a book-length tale, and as a narrator she makes the decision to stay invisible, forgoing the option of actively guiding us from one scenario to the next. She makes Eric Prokopi a very real and sympathetic figure, but he and his case are too small to serve as scaffolding for a story on such a grand scale of geography and time.
What's here—and much of it is great—is fantastic color and background, rich and detailed to the extent that they sometimes take us way off track. To cite just one example: To flesh out the reasons for decisions by the Mongolian government re: fossils, Williams presents basically the entire modern history of Mongolia, emphasizing post-Soviet political drama, and several colorful personalities. It's all compelling, and I knew none of it before, but it takes us far, far afield from the story of fossil recovery, much less issues of commercial fossil-hunting. It's almost a surprise when Prokopi—the dinosaur artist—re-enters the story. Hey, it's that guy again!
So: Beautiful writing and diligent research that could have used a firmer hand in shaping.
Beginning with the title, the author seems to take New Yorker colleague Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief as a model, and a writer could do far worse. But Williams' central character and his story—as a fossil collector and salesman who gets caught—simply aren't compelling enough to carry a book-length tale, and as a narrator she makes the decision to stay invisible, forgoing the option of actively guiding us from one scenario to the next. She makes Eric Prokopi a very real and sympathetic figure, but he and his case are too small to serve as scaffolding for a story on such a grand scale of geography and time.
What's here—and much of it is great—is fantastic color and background, rich and detailed to the extent that they sometimes take us way off track. To cite just one example: To flesh out the reasons for decisions by the Mongolian government re: fossils, Williams presents basically the entire modern history of Mongolia, emphasizing post-Soviet political drama, and several colorful personalities. It's all compelling, and I knew none of it before, but it takes us far, far afield from the story of fossil recovery, much less issues of commercial fossil-hunting. It's almost a surprise when Prokopi—the dinosaur artist—re-enters the story. Hey, it's that guy again!
So: Beautiful writing and diligent research that could have used a firmer hand in shaping.
January 9, 2019
First of all, The Dinosaur Artist is clearly thoroughly researched. Unfortunately, Paige Williams simply wasn't able to take all that research and make a cohesive storyline out of it. She tries to pull in too many unrelated stories, which ends up cluttering the plot.
This is a story about smuggling giant dinosaur fossils out of Mongolia. I was hoping for some adventure and excitement. Instead, I was bored.
If you're really into fossils, then you might like this book. If not, just skip it. It's not worth the read.
This is a story about smuggling giant dinosaur fossils out of Mongolia. I was hoping for some adventure and excitement. Instead, I was bored.
If you're really into fossils, then you might like this book. If not, just skip it. It's not worth the read.
February 23, 2020
4.5 Stars for The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, betrayal, and the Quest for Earth’s Ultimate Trophy (audiobook) by Page Williams read by Ellen Archer. This is a really detailed account of the Mongolian dinosaur bones being dug up and sold. And all the consequences to Mongolia and to the sellers. It’s an interesting account but it does get a little bogged down by all the details.
Read
November 23, 2018At times, the history of both fossil trade and Mongolia get a little overwhelming to the otherwise immersive narrative, but a really fascinating book about commercial fossil hunting and selling. Like THE FEATHER THIEF, but with dinosaur fossils. It's a bloodless crime, and it's a really fascinating crime in that I'm not entirely sure what Prokopi was really imprisoned for (it's a lot of legal hopscotching, given that it's an issue of international law, of laws not entirely codified, and of an area of legal weakness, not to mention that some of the things he did were because of someone else who suddenly died in the middle of everything which is rather inconvenient).
The book looks deceptively longer than it is. Over half of the book is research notes. Williams did her work here, and I loved it deeply. Nonviolent true crime within niche industries is a thing I am finding myself loving more and more.
The book looks deceptively longer than it is. Over half of the book is research notes. Williams did her work here, and I loved it deeply. Nonviolent true crime within niche industries is a thing I am finding myself loving more and more.
October 10, 2020
Eric Prokopi’s obsession with fossils began as a little boy in Florida searching for shark teeth. The quiet young man eventually started a successful business hunting and preparing specimens for collectors around the world. He was traveling the world, making good money from auctioning fossils, flipping homes with his wife, and even installing prepared dinosaur skeletons in the homes of the rich and famous (Count how many times Leo DiCaprio and Nic Cage are name dropped within these pages).
With the success of the Jurassic Park film, the paleontology world became big news and scientists were dismayed to find the fossil trade was bringing in big money while losing important specimens for study to illegal acquisition.
Prokopi set his sights on a T. bataar, which he purchased and smuggled out of Mongolia with the help of a shady dealer. Prokopi spent a great deal of time restoring the nearly complete skeleton and needed a large payday to cover his growing expenses in fossil hunting as well as real estate. The bidding started at an NYC auction house at almost $1 million but Prokopi’s relief soon turned to dread when the president of Mongolia stepped in to demand the specimen’s return.
Paige Williams gives an in-depth look at Eric Prokopi’s personal and business life as well as how he came to possess the T. bataar that became part of an unprecedented case in the U.S.
While this story is incredibly fascinating, I think this 270ish page book was pushing it. The full story could easily fit into a feature article and this book was filled with way too much info dumping about history and politics that didn’t relate strongly enough to what is supposed to be the main story here. I skimmed a good 30% of this book along the way as it went off on side stories that didn’t interest me. Obviously it’s well researched and the writing is strong but this particular story just didn’t warrant a full length book in my opinion.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
With the success of the Jurassic Park film, the paleontology world became big news and scientists were dismayed to find the fossil trade was bringing in big money while losing important specimens for study to illegal acquisition.
Prokopi set his sights on a T. bataar, which he purchased and smuggled out of Mongolia with the help of a shady dealer. Prokopi spent a great deal of time restoring the nearly complete skeleton and needed a large payday to cover his growing expenses in fossil hunting as well as real estate. The bidding started at an NYC auction house at almost $1 million but Prokopi’s relief soon turned to dread when the president of Mongolia stepped in to demand the specimen’s return.
Paige Williams gives an in-depth look at Eric Prokopi’s personal and business life as well as how he came to possess the T. bataar that became part of an unprecedented case in the U.S.
While this story is incredibly fascinating, I think this 270ish page book was pushing it. The full story could easily fit into a feature article and this book was filled with way too much info dumping about history and politics that didn’t relate strongly enough to what is supposed to be the main story here. I skimmed a good 30% of this book along the way as it went off on side stories that didn’t interest me. Obviously it’s well researched and the writing is strong but this particular story just didn’t warrant a full length book in my opinion.
For more reviews, visit www.rootsandreads.wordpress.com
December 24, 2018
A thoroughly researched book that unearths (minutely) the story behind the 2012 case that saw a fossil Tarbosaurus bataar skeleton land in the middle of an international dispute between Mongolia and the American "commercial paleontology" community. Williams does an incredible job of documenting Eric Prokopi's path from child fossil enthusiast to international fossil thief, and an equally excellent job of looking into the contributions that fossil hunters have made to the academic field of paleontology. While some people may be distracted by the many narrative side-paths that Williams treads, ultimately she does a good job of weaving them all together.
What she doesn't do justice to, or at least not as thoroughly, is the Mongolian side of the story. While we get endless descriptions of the material ambitions of the Prokopis (and to be fair, these make them, at least to this reader, even more venal and unsympathetic) and their home and all the nice things that the own and want to own, down to their bank balances on various key days in the story, all we see of Mongolian home life is a vague sketch of a few men with drinking problems, and a couple of politicians who come across as only being interested in the return of the fossils for the sake of their own political gain. This imbalance in presentation makes the Americans inherently more understandable, and to some readers, no doubt, more sympathetic. This, in turn, seems to weigh the story in favor of the thieves.
It is also troubling that Williams presents the events as somewhat legally ambiguous. In trying to adhere to the both-sides-of-the-story ethic of American journalism, and highlighting the claims of American fossil collectors that the Mongolian laws are "confusing" or "unclear," she misses the fact that these things have never been confusing or unclear on the Mongolian legal side. I know this, personally, because I arrived in Mongolia as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2000, and was told during my training that the patrimony laws of Mongolia forbade the export of fossils (and antiques, defined as anything greater than 40 years old). We were told not to buy these items, regardless of whether someone offered us something really cool or not. Like any self-respecting American who has been a six-year-old, I liked dinosaurs and had memorized all their names and even had a stuffed T. rex that was a favorite toy when I was little. But I was hardly a paleontologist or even an avid fossil fan. And yet I was fully aware of Roy Chapman Andrews and the way his expeditions had precipitated Mongolian laws against export of fossils. I find it close to incredible that people as immersed in fossils as Prokopi, Moore, and the rest of the "commercial paleontologists" in this story would be ignorant of the fact that what they were doing was illegal. Their actions certainly suggested that they were aware of it. The straight fact is, they didn't care that they were robbing an impoverished nation of its patrimony, because they wanted to make money. This is the story of the entire history of Western imperialism, and in sidestepping this perspective, Williams misses the opportunity to get at a much deeper set of issues in addition to presenting documentation of the fossil trade and a single legal case.
Mongolia is a difficult place to work - I've remained involved in research projects there for 18 years now, and the challenges are numerous. I speak the language fluently, but if you don't, it can be very difficult to access local perspectives, and even harder to understand the culture and the dynamics that one is exposed to. No doubt Williams ran into these challenges during her time in Mongolia, and clearly the Prokopis gave her an astonishing degree of access to their lives, so the pictures that she paints of these two sets of actors are bound to be different. But there are consequences to that imbalance, and hyping the American sense of entitlement while suggesting that the Mongolians only wanted their fossil back for political reasons does everyone a disservice.
Nevertheless, this book is worth the read. It's well written and compelling, with a cast of characters who are intriguing. I just hope that American readers will keep in mind that there is another set of characters whose stories are glossed over - perhaps unavoidably, but in a way that does skew the narrative.
What she doesn't do justice to, or at least not as thoroughly, is the Mongolian side of the story. While we get endless descriptions of the material ambitions of the Prokopis (and to be fair, these make them, at least to this reader, even more venal and unsympathetic) and their home and all the nice things that the own and want to own, down to their bank balances on various key days in the story, all we see of Mongolian home life is a vague sketch of a few men with drinking problems, and a couple of politicians who come across as only being interested in the return of the fossils for the sake of their own political gain. This imbalance in presentation makes the Americans inherently more understandable, and to some readers, no doubt, more sympathetic. This, in turn, seems to weigh the story in favor of the thieves.
It is also troubling that Williams presents the events as somewhat legally ambiguous. In trying to adhere to the both-sides-of-the-story ethic of American journalism, and highlighting the claims of American fossil collectors that the Mongolian laws are "confusing" or "unclear," she misses the fact that these things have never been confusing or unclear on the Mongolian legal side. I know this, personally, because I arrived in Mongolia as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2000, and was told during my training that the patrimony laws of Mongolia forbade the export of fossils (and antiques, defined as anything greater than 40 years old). We were told not to buy these items, regardless of whether someone offered us something really cool or not. Like any self-respecting American who has been a six-year-old, I liked dinosaurs and had memorized all their names and even had a stuffed T. rex that was a favorite toy when I was little. But I was hardly a paleontologist or even an avid fossil fan. And yet I was fully aware of Roy Chapman Andrews and the way his expeditions had precipitated Mongolian laws against export of fossils. I find it close to incredible that people as immersed in fossils as Prokopi, Moore, and the rest of the "commercial paleontologists" in this story would be ignorant of the fact that what they were doing was illegal. Their actions certainly suggested that they were aware of it. The straight fact is, they didn't care that they were robbing an impoverished nation of its patrimony, because they wanted to make money. This is the story of the entire history of Western imperialism, and in sidestepping this perspective, Williams misses the opportunity to get at a much deeper set of issues in addition to presenting documentation of the fossil trade and a single legal case.
Mongolia is a difficult place to work - I've remained involved in research projects there for 18 years now, and the challenges are numerous. I speak the language fluently, but if you don't, it can be very difficult to access local perspectives, and even harder to understand the culture and the dynamics that one is exposed to. No doubt Williams ran into these challenges during her time in Mongolia, and clearly the Prokopis gave her an astonishing degree of access to their lives, so the pictures that she paints of these two sets of actors are bound to be different. But there are consequences to that imbalance, and hyping the American sense of entitlement while suggesting that the Mongolians only wanted their fossil back for political reasons does everyone a disservice.
Nevertheless, this book is worth the read. It's well written and compelling, with a cast of characters who are intriguing. I just hope that American readers will keep in mind that there is another set of characters whose stories are glossed over - perhaps unavoidably, but in a way that does skew the narrative.
September 26, 2018
As the aunt of 6 year old “future paleontologist”, I have learned a good deal about dinosaurs and fossils in the last couple years. I have been looking forward all summer to reading The Dinosaur Artist, a well-researched narrative journalistic book about the controversy surrounding a Florida man who prepared and auctioned a Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton from fossils unearthed in Mongolia. The book did not disappoint. While I learned a considerable amount about everything from fossil hunting to the history of Mongolia, I didn’t however come away with a clear-cut opinion about who ultimately owns the past as unearthed in fossils. It’s complicated. Amateur fossil hunters have much to contribute to our knowledge base but the scientific process and human history must also be taken in to consideration. I would have given this 5 stars but felt it got bogged down a little in the details of true crime style biography of rogue fossil artist Eric Prokopi.
Thanks to NetGalley, Hatchette Books, and author Paige Williams for the advanced reader’s copy.
Thanks to NetGalley, Hatchette Books, and author Paige Williams for the advanced reader’s copy.
July 10, 2025
this gave me war flashbacks to the shark book i read which i was so excited for but had nothing to do with sharks. i think this author did not have enough to say about the supposed subject matter and so instead a new irrelevant individual gets introduced every few pages and then you have to hear their life story. there was an additional bad layer to this book which was the rampant US cold war propaganda that took over halfway. hello??
Read
February 11, 2019The Dinosaur Artist is a tale that has everything: passion, science, politics, intrigue, and, of course, dinosaurs. Paige Williams is a wonderful storyteller.
Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Author of The Sixth Extinction
What a terrific book. A fascinating story of adventure and obsession, and a captivating journey into the world of fossils and fossil peddlers, scientists, museums, international politics, the history of life, and the nature of human nature. Williams writes beautifully about it all. If you love dinosaurs, paleontology, or just a rollicking good tale, you will love this book. I couldn't put it down.
Jennifer Ackerman, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Genius of Birds
A cracking combination of true crime, dinosaurs, and top-notch investigative journalism. Paige Williams’ riveting tale exposes the dodgy dealings of the black market trade in dinosaurs, an international underworld that that few people have probably heard of, and which breaks my heart as a paleontologist.
Steve Brusatte, Bestselling Author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
Paige Williams is that rare reporter who burrows into a subject until all of its dimensions, all of its darkened corners and secret chambers, are illuminated. With The Dinosaur Artist, she has done more than reveal a gripping true crime story; she has cast light on everything from obsessive fossil hunters to how the earth evolved. This is a tremendous book.
David Grann, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Killers of the Flower Moon
The Dinosaur Artist is a breathtaking feat of writing and reporting: a strange, irresistible, and beautifully written story steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics. It’s at once laugh-out-loud funny and deeply sobering. I was blown away by the depth of its characters, its vivid details, and Paige Williams’ incredible command of the facts. Bottom line: this is an extraordinary debut by one of the best nonfiction writers we’ve got.
Rebecca Skloot, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of The Immortal Life of Henriette Lacks
The Dinosaur Artist is a triumph. With peerless prose and sharp-eyed reporting, Paige Williams weaves a story that, even as it spans continents and transcends geological epochs, is deeply anchored in the passion and hubris of a rich cast of characters. Captivating, funny, and profound, it is easily one of the strongest works of non-fiction in years.
Ed Yong, Staff Writer, The Atlantic; New York Times Bestselling Author of I Contain Multitudes
Paige Williams is as deft as the fossil hunters and skeleton builders she writes about. As they exhume treasures secreted in earthen repositories and assemble brilliant mounts from a scattering of dinosaur bones, she mines exquisite details from a quarry of source materials and pieces together a compelling story out of a spillage of human experience. The result is a work of art.
Jack E. Davis, Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Author of The Gulf
I am in awe of Paige Williams. Every line of The Dinosaur Artist — from her deeply informed discussions of paleontology and the law to her often withering and hilarious descriptions — was a pleasure to read. Few nonfiction writers are capable of mining their characters with such a winning blend of sympathy, wonder, and rigour.
Liza Mundy, New York Times Bestselling Author of Michelleand Code Girls
Williams’ illuminating chronicle questions who has a right to nature.
Booklist
Prokopi’s case is a fascinating example of the pull of prehistoric fossils and the power of law. Nature enthusiasts, scientists, and politics buffs will sink their teeth into this intriguing account.
Jeffrey Meyer, Library Journal
New Yorker staff writer Williams uses the story of fossil enthusiast Eric Prokopi to illuminate the murky world of modern fossil hunting in this fascinating account ... a triumphant book that will appeal to a wide audience.
Publishers Weekly
A palaeontological page-turner … Williams has written a masterful book of suspense and true-crime that is as fair in the portrayal of its protagonists, as it is thorough in the context in which the story is situated.
The Inquisitive Biologist
Ms. Williams’s writing is often concise and evocative … gripping and cinematic.
Richard Conniff, The Wall Street Journal
An intriguing story of dinosaur smuggling … Good fun for fossil freaks.
Kirkus
Williams’s painstakingly detailed reporting reminds us that events like these are far more complicated than they might seem, and if we want the commercial fossil trade to be anything other than what it currently is, we must understand the intricate pushes and pulls of the industry ... this is where The Dinosaur Artist excels ... details and characters bring home the fact that the challenge of combating fossil smuggling and reforming the trade is truly daunting.
Lydia Pyne, The Los Angeles Review of Books
The strange underground world Prokopi inhabits inevitably brings us in contact with some serious oddballs, each of whom is introduced by Williams with the economy and evocative precision of a haiku. In affectless, purposeful prose we get a stream of increasingly strange and piquant factoids about these people, who seem to emerge straight out of a Coen brothers movie.
Peter Brannen, The New York Times Book Review
An ambitious and worthy addition to the natural history and science-writing canon, and also to national cultural heritage literature.
Julia Jackson, Readings
Williams uses the story of Prokopi to dig into the muddy world of fossil collectors, dealers and sellers. It’s a world where underfunded museums compete with wealthy film stars to buy the most valuable skeletons, and only expert palaeontologists can identify bones that can be easily smuggled from a country where they are protected to a country where they can be sold freely. It’s a fascinating journey to the centre of the modern Jurassic world.
Herald Sun
New Yorker writer Paige Williams assembles the story as meticulously as a palaeontologist and the result is fascinating, taking in the tales of the protagonists, the tussles between science and commercial fossil hunters and the history of the science itself … A superior piece of investigative writing.
Sydney Morning Herald
A timely caution on the perils of buried treasure.
Robyn Douglas, Adelaide Advertiser
Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Author of The Sixth Extinction
What a terrific book. A fascinating story of adventure and obsession, and a captivating journey into the world of fossils and fossil peddlers, scientists, museums, international politics, the history of life, and the nature of human nature. Williams writes beautifully about it all. If you love dinosaurs, paleontology, or just a rollicking good tale, you will love this book. I couldn't put it down.
Jennifer Ackerman, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Genius of Birds
A cracking combination of true crime, dinosaurs, and top-notch investigative journalism. Paige Williams’ riveting tale exposes the dodgy dealings of the black market trade in dinosaurs, an international underworld that that few people have probably heard of, and which breaks my heart as a paleontologist.
Steve Brusatte, Bestselling Author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
Paige Williams is that rare reporter who burrows into a subject until all of its dimensions, all of its darkened corners and secret chambers, are illuminated. With The Dinosaur Artist, she has done more than reveal a gripping true crime story; she has cast light on everything from obsessive fossil hunters to how the earth evolved. This is a tremendous book.
David Grann, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Killers of the Flower Moon
The Dinosaur Artist is a breathtaking feat of writing and reporting: a strange, irresistible, and beautifully written story steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics. It’s at once laugh-out-loud funny and deeply sobering. I was blown away by the depth of its characters, its vivid details, and Paige Williams’ incredible command of the facts. Bottom line: this is an extraordinary debut by one of the best nonfiction writers we’ve got.
Rebecca Skloot, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of The Immortal Life of Henriette Lacks
The Dinosaur Artist is a triumph. With peerless prose and sharp-eyed reporting, Paige Williams weaves a story that, even as it spans continents and transcends geological epochs, is deeply anchored in the passion and hubris of a rich cast of characters. Captivating, funny, and profound, it is easily one of the strongest works of non-fiction in years.
Ed Yong, Staff Writer, The Atlantic; New York Times Bestselling Author of I Contain Multitudes
Paige Williams is as deft as the fossil hunters and skeleton builders she writes about. As they exhume treasures secreted in earthen repositories and assemble brilliant mounts from a scattering of dinosaur bones, she mines exquisite details from a quarry of source materials and pieces together a compelling story out of a spillage of human experience. The result is a work of art.
Jack E. Davis, Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Author of The Gulf
I am in awe of Paige Williams. Every line of The Dinosaur Artist — from her deeply informed discussions of paleontology and the law to her often withering and hilarious descriptions — was a pleasure to read. Few nonfiction writers are capable of mining their characters with such a winning blend of sympathy, wonder, and rigour.
Liza Mundy, New York Times Bestselling Author of Michelleand Code Girls
Williams’ illuminating chronicle questions who has a right to nature.
Booklist
Prokopi’s case is a fascinating example of the pull of prehistoric fossils and the power of law. Nature enthusiasts, scientists, and politics buffs will sink their teeth into this intriguing account.
Jeffrey Meyer, Library Journal
New Yorker staff writer Williams uses the story of fossil enthusiast Eric Prokopi to illuminate the murky world of modern fossil hunting in this fascinating account ... a triumphant book that will appeal to a wide audience.
Publishers Weekly
A palaeontological page-turner … Williams has written a masterful book of suspense and true-crime that is as fair in the portrayal of its protagonists, as it is thorough in the context in which the story is situated.
The Inquisitive Biologist
Ms. Williams’s writing is often concise and evocative … gripping and cinematic.
Richard Conniff, The Wall Street Journal
An intriguing story of dinosaur smuggling … Good fun for fossil freaks.
Kirkus
Williams’s painstakingly detailed reporting reminds us that events like these are far more complicated than they might seem, and if we want the commercial fossil trade to be anything other than what it currently is, we must understand the intricate pushes and pulls of the industry ... this is where The Dinosaur Artist excels ... details and characters bring home the fact that the challenge of combating fossil smuggling and reforming the trade is truly daunting.
Lydia Pyne, The Los Angeles Review of Books
The strange underground world Prokopi inhabits inevitably brings us in contact with some serious oddballs, each of whom is introduced by Williams with the economy and evocative precision of a haiku. In affectless, purposeful prose we get a stream of increasingly strange and piquant factoids about these people, who seem to emerge straight out of a Coen brothers movie.
Peter Brannen, The New York Times Book Review
An ambitious and worthy addition to the natural history and science-writing canon, and also to national cultural heritage literature.
Julia Jackson, Readings
Williams uses the story of Prokopi to dig into the muddy world of fossil collectors, dealers and sellers. It’s a world where underfunded museums compete with wealthy film stars to buy the most valuable skeletons, and only expert palaeontologists can identify bones that can be easily smuggled from a country where they are protected to a country where they can be sold freely. It’s a fascinating journey to the centre of the modern Jurassic world.
Herald Sun
New Yorker writer Paige Williams assembles the story as meticulously as a palaeontologist and the result is fascinating, taking in the tales of the protagonists, the tussles between science and commercial fossil hunters and the history of the science itself … A superior piece of investigative writing.
Sydney Morning Herald
A timely caution on the perils of buried treasure.
Robyn Douglas, Adelaide Advertiser
August 12, 2018
The Dinosaur Hunter starts with controversy then maps the geography of the fossil landscape, from hunters to politics to jealousies and poachers. Williams covers the history of paleontology as well that of natural history museums. There’s even some celebrity sighting: a Cage/ DiCaprio fight over a 67-million-year-old skull of a Tyrannosaurus Bataar. The Dinosaur Artist is a memorable read with great tension over the timeless themes of the hunt, money, and greed.
Full review can be found here: https://paulspicks.blog/2018/08/11/th...
All my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog
Full review can be found here: https://paulspicks.blog/2018/08/11/th...
All my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog
February 22, 2019
I can't recall the last time I disliked a non-fiction book so much. This book took an only mildly interesting incident and tried to stretch it into a book. The content of this book has many echoes of the perhaps more popular Tyrannosaurus Sue: The Extraordinary Saga of the Largest, Most Fought Over T-Rex Ever Found, and I think this must have inspired the author to try to make a book out of this incident. Because there isn't enough to really support a book, the author sets out to try to pad the book with extraneous information.
It is very common for an author writing about real people to provide certain specific facts about a person to make them "come alive" in the reader's imagination. These often include features of physical appearance, mannerisms, or illustrative anecdotes from colleagues. Normally this is provided briefly when the characters are introduced and then the focus is on material actually relevant to the topic at hand. In this book, this filler material feels like it is the feature and the premise of the book the background. First, each character's background is developed very extensively, going back into the early life of their parents even. Then the author can't seem to stop adding pointless personal details about the characters continuously as the action unfolds. It is like trying to listen to a rambler tell a story, and there are more irrelevant asides and free-associations than comments related to the actual story nominally being told. This even extends so far as to provide extensive backgrounds on historical people who have no relationship to the story at all but just happen to have lived in places that pop up, specifically Genghis Khan for Mongolia and Mary Anning for Southern England. Many other non-human incidental features are also explored in depth with no obvious relevance to the story. Examples include, the Tuscon geology/fossil show, the AMNH expeditions to the Gobi in the 1920s, and Mongolian political history.
This is the first book I've read that draws (at least openly) extensively on Facebook as source material. While this is an obvious and information-rich source for a modern author, this book ends up on the wrong side of so many pitfalls that it could become a case study in what not to do:
1. Facebook can give the author many insights into candid moments of the subjects' lives. That doesn't mean the reader needs to read about all of them. An appropriate use would be to carefully curate a couple that provide a rich insight into the subject in a short space. However, as alluded to above, this author can't seem to resist throwing in as many as possible, sometimes just as an indicator of time passing. When the material isn't relevant, it just makes the reader into a low-class voyeuristic Facebook stalker.
2. Facebook is full of utterly insipid and unoriginal comments that are literally not noteworthy. However, this book notes many of them. Perhaps the one that rankled me most was when the author cataloged not 1, not 2, but 3 separate comments on the main subjects courtroom sketch drawing, all saying that the likeness is poor in utterly unoriginal ways.
3. In an epilogue, using old Facebook information as a "most recently seen" for someone who cannot be tracked down just feels cheap, but yes, we have that in this book.
Many of the same problems seemingly stem from the recent nature of these events and the apparent open cooperation of many of the subjects meaning that the author had multiple sources of extensive personal information even beyond the vast info of Facebook. It seems the author was so enamored of the amount and detail of information available, that she couldn't figure out how to distill it into some sort of essence and/or wanted to "show off" how much source material she had. Unfortunately, this book comes off not as "well-researched" as the author might have hoped but rather as just "poorly-edited."
It is very common for an author writing about real people to provide certain specific facts about a person to make them "come alive" in the reader's imagination. These often include features of physical appearance, mannerisms, or illustrative anecdotes from colleagues. Normally this is provided briefly when the characters are introduced and then the focus is on material actually relevant to the topic at hand. In this book, this filler material feels like it is the feature and the premise of the book the background. First, each character's background is developed very extensively, going back into the early life of their parents even. Then the author can't seem to stop adding pointless personal details about the characters continuously as the action unfolds. It is like trying to listen to a rambler tell a story, and there are more irrelevant asides and free-associations than comments related to the actual story nominally being told. This even extends so far as to provide extensive backgrounds on historical people who have no relationship to the story at all but just happen to have lived in places that pop up, specifically Genghis Khan for Mongolia and Mary Anning for Southern England. Many other non-human incidental features are also explored in depth with no obvious relevance to the story. Examples include, the Tuscon geology/fossil show, the AMNH expeditions to the Gobi in the 1920s, and Mongolian political history.
This is the first book I've read that draws (at least openly) extensively on Facebook as source material. While this is an obvious and information-rich source for a modern author, this book ends up on the wrong side of so many pitfalls that it could become a case study in what not to do:
1. Facebook can give the author many insights into candid moments of the subjects' lives. That doesn't mean the reader needs to read about all of them. An appropriate use would be to carefully curate a couple that provide a rich insight into the subject in a short space. However, as alluded to above, this author can't seem to resist throwing in as many as possible, sometimes just as an indicator of time passing. When the material isn't relevant, it just makes the reader into a low-class voyeuristic Facebook stalker.
2. Facebook is full of utterly insipid and unoriginal comments that are literally not noteworthy. However, this book notes many of them. Perhaps the one that rankled me most was when the author cataloged not 1, not 2, but 3 separate comments on the main subjects courtroom sketch drawing, all saying that the likeness is poor in utterly unoriginal ways.
3. In an epilogue, using old Facebook information as a "most recently seen" for someone who cannot be tracked down just feels cheap, but yes, we have that in this book.
Many of the same problems seemingly stem from the recent nature of these events and the apparent open cooperation of many of the subjects meaning that the author had multiple sources of extensive personal information even beyond the vast info of Facebook. It seems the author was so enamored of the amount and detail of information available, that she couldn't figure out how to distill it into some sort of essence and/or wanted to "show off" how much source material she had. Unfortunately, this book comes off not as "well-researched" as the author might have hoped but rather as just "poorly-edited."
December 26, 2018
I wasn't entirely certain what I would get when I first picked up this book. The Dinosaur Artist. The subtitle explains what it is about a bit more clearly, but until I opened it I didn't know it was about the illegal trafficking of Mongolian fossils, the trade itself, and in particular the controversial case of T. Bataar. It touched upon the purchases of the skulls by Nicolas Cage and Leonardo di Caprio. It went in depth into the debate of whether or not amateur fossil collectors should be allowed to ply their trade, or if it should only be open to the professionals - a more complicated argument than one may expect.
Paige Williams wove together a complex story that ranged from Genghis Khan to Mary Anning and her fossil collection along the seaside that resulted in the famous poem. She sells seashells by the sea shore. Only those sea shells included one of the best preserved plesiosaurs known to science. It examined the history of Mongolia, of the Tuscon Fossil and Mineral Show. Of Gainesville, Florida, of all places. Endless bickering, competition, and the wonder of fossils and the passion they engender within those who love them - everything has its place and together made the trade and collection a joy to dive into.
This story, incredibly recent, still has bearings upon the modern paleontology practice. Recently even Spinosaurus came under fire. Mongolia is a fossil rich nation, and one that has yet to fully develop into what it could. They could, and should, be the world leaders in fossil collection and dinosaur study. They should be churning out the best paleontologists in the world, their museum should put the Chicago Field Museum to shame. It is said they have enough fossils and full specimens within the Gobi to fully stock their museums every four years, switching out specimens so everyone may revel in their beauty. Perhaps, perhaps now they will begin to celebrate their prehistoric heritage along with that Genghis Khan created.
While the future of everything hidden within the Gobi is in question, there could be a bright and vibrant future for Mongolia. One can hope, one can dream, and just perhaps.. one can watch as more and more beautiful stunning dinosaurs are found beneath the shifting sands, properly recorded, and mounted for display within Mongolia where they belong.
Paige Williams wove together a complex story that ranged from Genghis Khan to Mary Anning and her fossil collection along the seaside that resulted in the famous poem. She sells seashells by the sea shore. Only those sea shells included one of the best preserved plesiosaurs known to science. It examined the history of Mongolia, of the Tuscon Fossil and Mineral Show. Of Gainesville, Florida, of all places. Endless bickering, competition, and the wonder of fossils and the passion they engender within those who love them - everything has its place and together made the trade and collection a joy to dive into.
This story, incredibly recent, still has bearings upon the modern paleontology practice. Recently even Spinosaurus came under fire. Mongolia is a fossil rich nation, and one that has yet to fully develop into what it could. They could, and should, be the world leaders in fossil collection and dinosaur study. They should be churning out the best paleontologists in the world, their museum should put the Chicago Field Museum to shame. It is said they have enough fossils and full specimens within the Gobi to fully stock their museums every four years, switching out specimens so everyone may revel in their beauty. Perhaps, perhaps now they will begin to celebrate their prehistoric heritage along with that Genghis Khan created.
While the future of everything hidden within the Gobi is in question, there could be a bright and vibrant future for Mongolia. One can hope, one can dream, and just perhaps.. one can watch as more and more beautiful stunning dinosaurs are found beneath the shifting sands, properly recorded, and mounted for display within Mongolia where they belong.
June 13, 2018
Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I love dinosaurs, so when I received a copy of The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy, by Paige Williams, I was ecstatic. This book contained so many things that I like: dinosaurs, journalism, natural and political history; how could I not read it?
This book evolved from an article that Paige wrote for The New Yorker, titled "Bones of Contention," which was published in 2013. It told the story of Eric Prokopi, and his Tarbosaurus (T. bataar) skeleton that swept the media by storm. Why? Because he tried to sell it at an auction in the USA, only to have the Mongolian government demand it back.
The Dinosaur Artist tells an incredibly compelling story about a niche black market: fossils.
Paige did a deep-dive into this case, tore it apart, and put it back together again. Her narrative explains how Eric got into fossil hunting, and how he was able to make a living from it. She also explores the history of palaeontology, and the fine line between professional scientists and amateur fossil hunters (the latter making a sizeable number of discoveries, and helping museums and researchers push forward in their respective fields).
One of the main questions posed throughout this book is "who owns natural history?" This question may seem tricky; as I mentioned, if you find a fossil on the ground, what's stopping you from keeping it?
Well, a lot of laws are. Eric didn't know this when he was in Mongolia, but the Mongolian government considers everything on or under the ground to belong to the country. So finding fossils and bringing them back to the USA is illegal. However, at the time, there were very few regulations in place to police this.
As a result, numerous Mongolian fossils were brought out of the country and sold. This stopped, though, after Eric's case. As a result of the case "law enforcement now had more insight into the illicit fossil trade."
In fact, when Mongolia began repatriating fossils, private collectors (including Nicholas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio) had to give up pieces of their collections. For real, I looked it up after finishing the book.
The Dinosaur Artist is more than awesome dinosaur stories and facts; it's about scientific discoveries, international law, history, and that sense of curiosity that lives inside us all. When I first saw this book, I knew I had to read it, and I absolutely loved it.
Thank you to the publisher for an electronic ARC of this book via NetGalley.
This book evolved from an article that Paige wrote for The New Yorker, titled "Bones of Contention," which was published in 2013. It told the story of Eric Prokopi, and his Tarbosaurus (T. bataar) skeleton that swept the media by storm. Why? Because he tried to sell it at an auction in the USA, only to have the Mongolian government demand it back.
The Dinosaur Artist tells an incredibly compelling story about a niche black market: fossils.
Paige did a deep-dive into this case, tore it apart, and put it back together again. Her narrative explains how Eric got into fossil hunting, and how he was able to make a living from it. She also explores the history of palaeontology, and the fine line between professional scientists and amateur fossil hunters (the latter making a sizeable number of discoveries, and helping museums and researchers push forward in their respective fields).
One of the main questions posed throughout this book is "who owns natural history?" This question may seem tricky; as I mentioned, if you find a fossil on the ground, what's stopping you from keeping it?
Well, a lot of laws are. Eric didn't know this when he was in Mongolia, but the Mongolian government considers everything on or under the ground to belong to the country. So finding fossils and bringing them back to the USA is illegal. However, at the time, there were very few regulations in place to police this.
As a result, numerous Mongolian fossils were brought out of the country and sold. This stopped, though, after Eric's case. As a result of the case "law enforcement now had more insight into the illicit fossil trade."
In fact, when Mongolia began repatriating fossils, private collectors (including Nicholas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio) had to give up pieces of their collections. For real, I looked it up after finishing the book.
The Dinosaur Artist is more than awesome dinosaur stories and facts; it's about scientific discoveries, international law, history, and that sense of curiosity that lives inside us all. When I first saw this book, I knew I had to read it, and I absolutely loved it.
Thank you to the publisher for an electronic ARC of this book via NetGalley.
October 20, 2018
Closing out as DNF, as my library copy is coming due. I enjoyed her 2014 New Yorker article, which was the start of the book: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals..., but the emboideries on that didn't add that much for me. I did enjoy her story of amateur fossil-digger Frank Garcia's big find in a Florida shell quarry, and her comments on the hostility of most academic paleontologists to amateurs (mostly unwarranted, imo). And her subject clearly evaded Mongolian law -- but he had an expensive house to pay for, and a family to feed.....
Anyway, there were enough clunkers for this geologist-reader --"Cretaceous-bearing strata" comes to mind -- to put me off, so I'll probably call it good, and my rating is based on reading about a third of the book. But do read her New Yorker article, which was offline for awhile (I think), so now is a good time.
And my wife thoroughly enjoyed the book, so YMMV!
For more paleontology-savvy readers, I highly recommend Peter Larson's "Rex Appeal": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Amazing memoir by a great field paleontologist and T. rex hunter, who ended up in jail for politically-motivated, trumped-up federal charges of paperwork violations....
Anyway, there were enough clunkers for this geologist-reader --"Cretaceous-bearing strata" comes to mind -- to put me off, so I'll probably call it good, and my rating is based on reading about a third of the book. But do read her New Yorker article, which was offline for awhile (I think), so now is a good time.
And my wife thoroughly enjoyed the book, so YMMV!
For more paleontology-savvy readers, I highly recommend Peter Larson's "Rex Appeal": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Amazing memoir by a great field paleontologist and T. rex hunter, who ended up in jail for politically-motivated, trumped-up federal charges of paperwork violations....
July 19, 2020
I have discovered a love for books about obsessive collectors and the lengths they go to to acquire rare finds.
May 31, 2022
The Dinosaur Artist by Paige Williams is the true story of the 2012/2013 court cases The United States vs. Eric Prokopi/ The United States vs. One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton dealing with the transportation and selling of a Mongolian dinosaur fossil, the T. Bataar, a close cousin of the tyrannosaurus rex. Williams also describes in detail the history of fossil hunting in Mongolia, other cases involving dinosaurs, and the lives of the people involved in the T. Bataar case.
Fascinating! I loved reading about dinosaur fossils, the court case, and the black market world of fossil trading. It was interesting to ponder the questions: where do fossils belong once discovered? To whom do they belong? Who or what determines if they will be used for research by scientists or for sale by commercial buyers?
Williams sometimes strayed off track a little too far for my liking, but always seemed to wrap things around back to her point eventually.
A good read for someone interested in science, paleontology, natural history and true crime.
Fascinating! I loved reading about dinosaur fossils, the court case, and the black market world of fossil trading. It was interesting to ponder the questions: where do fossils belong once discovered? To whom do they belong? Who or what determines if they will be used for research by scientists or for sale by commercial buyers?
Williams sometimes strayed off track a little too far for my liking, but always seemed to wrap things around back to her point eventually.
A good read for someone interested in science, paleontology, natural history and true crime.
March 18, 2019
I really loved this and was engrossed the whole way through. The backbone of the book is one Tarbosaurus skeleton of dubious origins, put up for auction and then seized by the United States government through civil forfeiture until its origins could be verified. Along the way we get to dive into the history of fossil hunting, Eric Prokopi's (the titular dinosaur artist) backstory, and a crash course on the state of the Mongolian government and their scientists. I thought those detours added to the story, but I could see how some people would find them frustrating, so ymmv.
Sidenote: This is the 2nd true crime book I've read in a row where Leonardo DiCaprio plays a role, so that's.... odd and I wonder what other shady shit that guy is getting up to.
Sidenote: This is the 2nd true crime book I've read in a row where Leonardo DiCaprio plays a role, so that's.... odd and I wonder what other shady shit that guy is getting up to.
June 27, 2024
I love deep diving into the world of other people's niche passions and hobbies. This one taught me a lot of interesting facts about commercial fossil hunting - like how apparently Leonardo DiCaprio and Nic Cage once got into a $200,000 bidding war over a dinosaur skull?? I do think this book would've benefited from being edited down, because there were a lot of extraneous details and tangents that just left me feeling overwhelmed.
April 1, 2019
You will never look at your local natural history museum the same again. The true story of a dinosaur heist. Science mixes with politics in this great adventure. Loved it!
March 21, 2022
This book evolved from an article that Paige wrote for The New Yorker, titled "Bones of Contention," which was published in 2013. It told the story of Eric Prokopi and his Tarbosaurus (T. bataar) skeleton that swept the media by storm. Why? Because he tried to sell it at an auction in the USA, only to have the Mongolian government demand it back.
The Dinosaur Artist tells an incredibly compelling story about a niche black market: fossils.
Paige did a deep-dive into this case, tore it apart, and put it back together again. Her narrative explains how Eric got into fossil hunting, and how he was able to make a living from it. She also explores the history of paleontology, and the fine line between professional scientists and amateur fossil hunters (the latter making a sizeable number of discoveries, and helping museums and researchers push forward in their respective fields).
One of the main questions posed throughout this book is "who owns natural history?" This question may seem tricky; as I mentioned, if you find a fossil on the ground, what's stopping you from keeping it?
Well, a lot of laws are. Eric didn't know this when he was in Mongolia, but the Mongolian government considers everything on or under the ground to belong to the country. So finding fossils and bringing them back to the USA is illegal. However, at the time, there were very few regulations in place to police this.
As a result, numerous Mongolian fossils were brought out of the country and sold. This stopped, though, after Eric's case. As a result of the case "law enforcement now had more insight into the illicit fossil trade."
In fact, when Mongolia began repatriating fossils, private collectors (including Nicholas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio) had to give up pieces of their collections. For real, I looked it up after finishing the book.
The Dinosaur Artist is more than awesome dinosaur stories and facts; it's about scientific discoveries, international law, history, and that sense of curiosity that lives inside us all. When I first saw this book, I knew I had to read it, and I absolutely loved it.
The Dinosaur Artist tells an incredibly compelling story about a niche black market: fossils.
Paige did a deep-dive into this case, tore it apart, and put it back together again. Her narrative explains how Eric got into fossil hunting, and how he was able to make a living from it. She also explores the history of paleontology, and the fine line between professional scientists and amateur fossil hunters (the latter making a sizeable number of discoveries, and helping museums and researchers push forward in their respective fields).
One of the main questions posed throughout this book is "who owns natural history?" This question may seem tricky; as I mentioned, if you find a fossil on the ground, what's stopping you from keeping it?
Well, a lot of laws are. Eric didn't know this when he was in Mongolia, but the Mongolian government considers everything on or under the ground to belong to the country. So finding fossils and bringing them back to the USA is illegal. However, at the time, there were very few regulations in place to police this.
As a result, numerous Mongolian fossils were brought out of the country and sold. This stopped, though, after Eric's case. As a result of the case "law enforcement now had more insight into the illicit fossil trade."
In fact, when Mongolia began repatriating fossils, private collectors (including Nicholas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio) had to give up pieces of their collections. For real, I looked it up after finishing the book.
The Dinosaur Artist is more than awesome dinosaur stories and facts; it's about scientific discoveries, international law, history, and that sense of curiosity that lives inside us all. When I first saw this book, I knew I had to read it, and I absolutely loved it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 29, 2020
Did you have a dinosaur phase? If you’ve ever stared at a giant dino skeleton in a museum (or uh, watched Jurassic Park) and had your imagination piqued, think about cracking open THE DINOSAUR ARTIST by Paige Williams, out today from Hachette Books.
In telling the story of a single fossil skeleton sale which turns wildly contentious, Williams gives sympathetic voice to all the stakeholders in the fossil hunting game: museums, academics, passionate fossil aficionados, natural history buffs, commercial traders, and all the affected sovereign governments around the world. You’re probably aware that fossil hunting exists, but have you ever considered who these long-dead creatures actually *belong* to? Who has rights to something that is, for all intents and purposes, a piece of the earth? Are they natural resources (fairly well-regulated)? Or cultural resources (less well-regulated)? Can falling inside a man-made border constrain an object that is from a time before humans even existed?
I’ve been fascinated by dinosaurs for most of my life, but I’d never considered the complex social web that their remains exist in, and how all the threads in that web affect what we the public see, know, and learn about them. Williams does an excellent job of drawing out each of those threads for clarity, then weaving them back together in a compelling narrative that ensures you’ll never react the same way to an image of a T. Rex.
While this book was *pretty specifically* up my alley, it’s also a broadly fascinating read. If you’re looking for some non-fiction that goes down easy and contains shades of Hollywood, crime, international intrigue, investigative reporting, and a cast of colorful real-life characters, check this sucker out. Thanks to @netgalley and @hachettebooks for the dARC!
In telling the story of a single fossil skeleton sale which turns wildly contentious, Williams gives sympathetic voice to all the stakeholders in the fossil hunting game: museums, academics, passionate fossil aficionados, natural history buffs, commercial traders, and all the affected sovereign governments around the world. You’re probably aware that fossil hunting exists, but have you ever considered who these long-dead creatures actually *belong* to? Who has rights to something that is, for all intents and purposes, a piece of the earth? Are they natural resources (fairly well-regulated)? Or cultural resources (less well-regulated)? Can falling inside a man-made border constrain an object that is from a time before humans even existed?
I’ve been fascinated by dinosaurs for most of my life, but I’d never considered the complex social web that their remains exist in, and how all the threads in that web affect what we the public see, know, and learn about them. Williams does an excellent job of drawing out each of those threads for clarity, then weaving them back together in a compelling narrative that ensures you’ll never react the same way to an image of a T. Rex.
While this book was *pretty specifically* up my alley, it’s also a broadly fascinating read. If you’re looking for some non-fiction that goes down easy and contains shades of Hollywood, crime, international intrigue, investigative reporting, and a cast of colorful real-life characters, check this sucker out. Thanks to @netgalley and @hachettebooks for the dARC!
July 1, 2019
This book is what happens when you take a story so shallow that it could be summed up on the back of a cocktail napkin and pad it out over the span of about 300 pages.
Guy with particular skill in finding and prepping fossils gets in financial trouble during the housing market bubble burst. He knows some contacts in the trade and stakes his hopes on some high market fossils from Mongolia which are less than legal. He obfuscates the transfer of the fossils through some fairly standard laundering procedures (moving the fossils through multiple ports, being vague on the paperwork to hide any explicit evidence, etc) Mongolia finds out about the fossils from the public auction and sues for their return. Guy fights back because he has a lot of money at stake and loses. Guy cheats on his wife. He loses the case and goes to jail. Gets divorced. Jail kinda sucks. Gets out of jail and hooks up with his new girlfriend. The end. I just saved you your time and money.
This book feels like it’s cashing in on the success of other similar books that have come out recently. Add the word “dinosaur” to the title and you’re guaranteed a best seller. There’s almost no substance here. At one point the author conjures up a history of Genghas Khan to add some irrelevant history of Mongolia for extra padding.
Dull.
Guy with particular skill in finding and prepping fossils gets in financial trouble during the housing market bubble burst. He knows some contacts in the trade and stakes his hopes on some high market fossils from Mongolia which are less than legal. He obfuscates the transfer of the fossils through some fairly standard laundering procedures (moving the fossils through multiple ports, being vague on the paperwork to hide any explicit evidence, etc) Mongolia finds out about the fossils from the public auction and sues for their return. Guy fights back because he has a lot of money at stake and loses. Guy cheats on his wife. He loses the case and goes to jail. Gets divorced. Jail kinda sucks. Gets out of jail and hooks up with his new girlfriend. The end. I just saved you your time and money.
This book feels like it’s cashing in on the success of other similar books that have come out recently. Add the word “dinosaur” to the title and you’re guaranteed a best seller. There’s almost no substance here. At one point the author conjures up a history of Genghas Khan to add some irrelevant history of Mongolia for extra padding.
Dull.
November 19, 2018
I wanted to like this book. I loved reading about Mary Anning. I hate-loved reading about the remorseless Prokopis and their victim mentality--"Eric stole dinosaurs from Mongolia knowing it was illegal only because he was trying to support our family (lifestyle of multiple houses and cars)!" The effect the prosecution of Eric Prokopi in the US had on the politics of Mongolia was both interesting and disheartening.
It seems like Williams did a lot of research and wanted to include everything she learned, which made the book hard to get through most of the time. Half the book could have been edited out or if she wanted to include everything, then split into a couple books. She would reference someone from an earlier chapter but I wouldn't remember who they were because during those 50 pages in between, I read about seven other people and their entire life stories, including a description of every single picture they took on a certain trip and how their parents met and a breakdown of every single thing they did one day they went out to the desert.
It seems like Williams did a lot of research and wanted to include everything she learned, which made the book hard to get through most of the time. Half the book could have been edited out or if she wanted to include everything, then split into a couple books. She would reference someone from an earlier chapter but I wouldn't remember who they were because during those 50 pages in between, I read about seven other people and their entire life stories, including a description of every single picture they took on a certain trip and how their parents met and a breakdown of every single thing they did one day they went out to the desert.
May 31, 2018
When I saw this book, I knew I had to read it. I have always been fascinated with dinosaurs. This is a story of Eric Prokopi who was a fossil hunter and dealer. He started looking for fossils when he was just a kid, As he got older, he found there was big money to be made selling all manner of fossils.whether he found them or bought them from others. In the meantime, paleontologists and scientists heard that Eric would be auctioning off a complete skeleton he had found in Mongolia. The President of Mongolia was advised that the skeleton was being sold and that he needed to claim it for Mongolia. An attorney was hired to get the auction stopped until the ownership could be resolved. Who owns the fossils, can they be sold to private citizens, should they stay in the country of origin? Endlessly fascinating. This book was extremely well researched and written. I received this book from Net Galley. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy . All thoughts and opinions are my own.
December 26, 2018
There’s a good story here and Williams did a lot of working telling it. But the end result had too much. Every time even a minor character is introduced we get a detailed digression into that person’s back story. With all the side tales and stories within stories, it makes the book feel more bloated and less cohesive than it needs to be. Still, in the midst of it all is a good story, with pretty compelling characters. So I did like it. I just was left with the feeling that it could have been better with a little less.
June 20, 2022
This is exactly what I want nonfiction to be. Rangy, compassionate, and well-written and researched, like a really long New Yorker article.
January 14, 2019
What a great book. I took off one star because there are no visuals, and dinosaurs are meant to be seen. I highly recommend the Dinosaur Artist, especially if you need a crash course in paleontology. Paige Williams has thrown in everything including the kitchen sink with Floridian Eric Prokopy as her central character. The story is about tomb raiding gone wrong; Eric made off with one of Mongolia's prize T Bataar (T Rex's less-popular cousin) skeletons and got caught in the middle when Mongolia decided to prosecute to get it back. Prokopy is a sympathetic character because of his humility, boyishness, and true love for fossils, but the book does not stop there. We get a 360-degree tour of the fossil biz from science, politics, law, archaeology, history, with a few celebrities thrown into the mix. Turns out fossil selling is a very lucrative business. If you think museums of natural history are the only places where you can find dinosaur skeletons, think again. Rich celebrities and wealthy business people like to buy fossils on the open and black markets. Who knew.
Because the book lacked illustrations, save for one table on Deep Time at the end, I read this with a few dino reference books at my side, namely Prehistoric History by DK Books (a huge, splashy door stop from a few years back), Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier, and another title written by a sure model for Indiana Jones. Every fact and photo check that I did came up true. I wasn't checking her work, but like I said, the book's lack of photos and illustrations is a defect considering the subject matter.
Sometimes the kitchen sink gets in the way of the story. While I'm sure that many will appreciate the detail, I found it a bit much with all the lists and backgrounds. Many serve as context for the characters and that helps, but I could've done without some of the lists, histories, and itineraries.
The Notes section is almost 100 pages and reads like an additional book. The Epilogue gives the book closure, telling us what happened to the wide cast of characters throughout the story. There's an index, bibliography, and a very lengthy Acknowledgments.
Highly recommended for adventure lovers, fossil hunters, anyone new to the fields of paleontology and archaeology, and armchair tomb raiders. Rumor has it the upcoming paperback will have illustrations.
Because the book lacked illustrations, save for one table on Deep Time at the end, I read this with a few dino reference books at my side, namely Prehistoric History by DK Books (a huge, splashy door stop from a few years back), Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier, and another title written by a sure model for Indiana Jones. Every fact and photo check that I did came up true. I wasn't checking her work, but like I said, the book's lack of photos and illustrations is a defect considering the subject matter.
Sometimes the kitchen sink gets in the way of the story. While I'm sure that many will appreciate the detail, I found it a bit much with all the lists and backgrounds. Many serve as context for the characters and that helps, but I could've done without some of the lists, histories, and itineraries.
The Notes section is almost 100 pages and reads like an additional book. The Epilogue gives the book closure, telling us what happened to the wide cast of characters throughout the story. There's an index, bibliography, and a very lengthy Acknowledgments.
Highly recommended for adventure lovers, fossil hunters, anyone new to the fields of paleontology and archaeology, and armchair tomb raiders. Rumor has it the upcoming paperback will have illustrations.
May 11, 2021
Paige Williams’ THE DINOSAUR ARTIST is an interesting account of Eric Prokopi’s lifelong fascination with fossils and where that led him.
Deep into selling fossils as an adult, Prokopi managed to buy an almost complete Tyrannosaurus
bataar skeleton from Mongolia and put it up for auction in the United States. All heck broke loose as Mongolia claimed it was theirs, fossil dealers were jealous, and scientists railed that fossils needed to be studied, not profited from.
The biggest question that developed for me in reading this book was did Prokopi know and understand that what he was doing was problematic? In my opinion he had to have known. He was fully into the life of dealing in fossils. I’m not convinced of his “golly gee, what?” story. I found Prokopi to be unlikeable.
The second thing is that I’ve come to believe that fossils should stay in the country where they’re found and only loaned out to other countries to share the knowledge.
Williams has previously written on the subject of paleoanthropology, so she has done a bit of homework in these areas. Her writing is easy to read. I didn’t care for the jumping around in time but it is harder to catch on to those things when you’re listening to an audiobook.
While it was mostly interesting (as opposed to mostly dead), the book did sometimes veer off into boring politician stories.
Deep into selling fossils as an adult, Prokopi managed to buy an almost complete Tyrannosaurus
bataar skeleton from Mongolia and put it up for auction in the United States. All heck broke loose as Mongolia claimed it was theirs, fossil dealers were jealous, and scientists railed that fossils needed to be studied, not profited from.
The biggest question that developed for me in reading this book was did Prokopi know and understand that what he was doing was problematic? In my opinion he had to have known. He was fully into the life of dealing in fossils. I’m not convinced of his “golly gee, what?” story. I found Prokopi to be unlikeable.
The second thing is that I’ve come to believe that fossils should stay in the country where they’re found and only loaned out to other countries to share the knowledge.
Williams has previously written on the subject of paleoanthropology, so she has done a bit of homework in these areas. Her writing is easy to read. I didn’t care for the jumping around in time but it is harder to catch on to those things when you’re listening to an audiobook.
While it was mostly interesting (as opposed to mostly dead), the book did sometimes veer off into boring politician stories.
March 11, 2019
So this is a monograph like quite a few others.
A long form article becomes a book. To pad the work they add background,a lot of background. Background on the players, background on dinosaurs, fossils and natural history.
But that’s okay with me.
This tale is sad. The poor guy who loved fossils bent some rules that had never been enforced and were murky at best. A confluence of politics in Mongolia and the US and one guy gets his life blown apart.
The whole question of countries land ownerships, amateur and professional scientists, rock hounds and mercenaries is quite tangled. But if you pull back to 35,000 feet, who the fuck really cares. Oh I could make some pretty scholastic arguments about the importance of science and a deeper understanding of the Mesozoic, but really who fucking cares. I mean I liked the book, I think the topics neat but really?
Put simply has anything paleontologist discovered in the last quarter century mattered to anyone outside that tiny community? Please enlighten me. And don’t bring in Ross from Friends.
What this book actually reveals is the power of capitalism. Only capitalism could throw off so much luxury that huge digs could be funded, million dollar auctions bidded , and natural museums supported.
Btw author cites Eugenics as something Hitler picks up and the Right gloms on to. False. The progressive left is the father of Eugenics and Hitler did pick up that, oh and Hitler is a socialist, so that’s all the Left
A long form article becomes a book. To pad the work they add background,a lot of background. Background on the players, background on dinosaurs, fossils and natural history.
But that’s okay with me.
This tale is sad. The poor guy who loved fossils bent some rules that had never been enforced and were murky at best. A confluence of politics in Mongolia and the US and one guy gets his life blown apart.
The whole question of countries land ownerships, amateur and professional scientists, rock hounds and mercenaries is quite tangled. But if you pull back to 35,000 feet, who the fuck really cares. Oh I could make some pretty scholastic arguments about the importance of science and a deeper understanding of the Mesozoic, but really who fucking cares. I mean I liked the book, I think the topics neat but really?
Put simply has anything paleontologist discovered in the last quarter century mattered to anyone outside that tiny community? Please enlighten me. And don’t bring in Ross from Friends.
What this book actually reveals is the power of capitalism. Only capitalism could throw off so much luxury that huge digs could be funded, million dollar auctions bidded , and natural museums supported.
Btw author cites Eugenics as something Hitler picks up and the Right gloms on to. False. The progressive left is the father of Eugenics and Hitler did pick up that, oh and Hitler is a socialist, so that’s all the Left
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