Dinosaurs Ever Evolving

The Changing Face of Prehistoric Animals in Popular Culture

Allen A. Debus (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

320 Seiten

2016
McFarland & Co Inc (Verlag)
978-0-7864-9951-9 (ISBN)

Infos

From their discovery in the 19th century to the dawn of the Nuclear Age, dinosaurs were seen in popular culture as ambassadors of the geological past and as icons of the "life through time" narrative of evolution. They took on a more foreboding character during the Cold War, serving as a warning to mankind with the advent of the hydrogen bomb. As fears of human extinction escalated during the ecological movement of the 1970s, dinosaurs communicated their metaphorical message of extinction, urging us from our destructive path. Using an eclectic variety of examples, this book outlines the three-fold "evolution" of dinosaurs and other prehistoric monsters in pop culture, from their poorly understood beginnings to the 21st century.

Autor

Allen A. Debus, a retired environmental chemist, has long been infatuated with dinosaurs, paleontology, science fiction, Godzilla and King Kong. He has written several books addressing prehistoric creatures—both real and fictional—in popular culture, and attends Chicagoland’s Wizard World and G-Fest. He is a member of the G-Fan Hall of Fame and lives in Hanover Park, Illinois.

Inhalt

Table of Contents


Foreword by J.D. Lees

Introduction: ­Pop-Cultural Evolution of the Prehistoric ­Dino-Monster:

Meaning and Metaphor

Part I. Perpetuating the Life Through Geological Time Paradigm

One. Sir Humphry Davy’s Volcanic Considerations of Life Through

Geological Time

Two. Popularizing the ­Life-Through-Time “Paleo-Novel”

Three. Henry Robert Knipe: A Forgotten ­Paleo-Popularizer

Four. Dinosaur Extinctions I: When a “dinosaur book” Isn’t: Henry Fairfield Osborn’s Origin and Evolution of Life (1917)

Five. Filmic Illustrations of Life Through Geological Time

Six. Lovecraft’s Paleontological Time Travels

Part II. Doomsday Dinosaurs

Seven. Dinosaur Extinctions II: Volcanoes Presage Environmental Apocalypse

Eight. Sizing up Radiation’s Unnatural Cold War Dangers

Nine. Nuclear Dragon: Godzilla and the Cold War—1954

Ten. Godzilla’s Dinosaurian Origins

Eleven. Oxygen Destroyers: When Oceans Die

Twelve. “After and Before”: Gorgo’s Alternate Adventures

Thirteen. Prehistoric Life Spawns an Environmental Movement

Fourteen. Beyond the Smog Monster: Godzilla in the Anthropocene

Part III. Man and Dinosaur as One

Fifteen. Decade of the Dinosaur

Sixteen. Dinosaur Extinctions III: Warning from Space! Science Fiction Becomes Scientific

Seventeen. Shadow of Our Past: Evolution of the Beast

Eighteen. That First Intelligence

Nineteen. When Dinosauroids Speak!

Epilogue

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheinungsdatum: 22.07.2016
• Zusatzinfo: 43 photos & illustrations, notes, bibliography, index
• Verlagsort: Jefferson, NC
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 178 x 254 mm
• Gewicht: 572 g
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Naturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• ISBN-10: 0-7864-9951-6 / 0786499516
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7864-9951-9 / 9780786499519
• Zustand: Neuware