Gorgon: The Monsters That Ruled the Planet Before Dinosaurs and How They Died in the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History
by Peter Ward
List Price:
Our Price: $0.49
You Save: $14.51 (97%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Peter WardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-02-22
ISBN: 0143034715
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Gorgon: The Monsters That Ruled the Planet Before Dinosaurs and How They Died in the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History
Book Review: Interesting, but the title is a bit misleading
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this book thinking that it would be principally about pre-mammalian creatures like the gorgonopsians, and about the end-Permian mass extinction. I feel a bit bad about having to give it a three-star review, but this is simply a case of a book's cover and description not matching its contents well at all.
The book really is primarily about the author's fieldwork experiences in South Africa. That's an interesting topic, and the writing is excellent. But the cover and description suggest that the book will be about the gorgons--a topic on which a book for general readership would be extremely welcome, as most works on this subject are very technical and not suited for a nonprofessional. If you pick this book up, as I did, expecting to learn more about gorgons than you can from a Wikipedia entry, you'll be disappointed.
If you're interested in the end-Permian mass extinction, try When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time. As for gorgonopsians--well, I'm still looking for a book on them for a general readership, and I'm not sure there is one.
More Gorgon: The Monsters That Ruled the Planet Before Dinosaurs and How They Died in the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History reviews:
1 2 3
1 2 3
Summary of Gorgon: The Monsters That Ruled the Planet Before Dinosaurs and How They Died in the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History
Millions of years before the Age of Dinosaurs, an environmental cataclysm annihilated 90 percent of all plant and animal life on the planet. In this lost world that was swept away 250 million years ago, the ferocious lizard-like Gorgon was the T. rex of its day. In this remarkable journey of discovery deep into Earth's history, Peter D. Ward, one of the world's most recognized authorities on mass extinctions, examines the strange and mysterious fate of this little-known prehistoric animal and its contemporaries-the ancestors of the turtle, the crocodile, the lizard, and eventually the dinosaur. Based on more than a decade's research in South Africa's Karoo Desert, Ward's groundbreaking work offers provocative theories on the mass extinctions of the past and confronts the startling implications they hold for humanity's future on the planet.History Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Mass Extinctions, Ice Age and Early Man Mania
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Bodyby Neil Shubin
Pantheon; Published: 2008-01-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.03
Price in other shops:
Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolutionby Richard Fortey
Vintage; Published: 2001-11-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.57
Price in other shops:
Time Machines: Scientific Explorations in Deep Timeby Peter D. Ward
Springer; Published: 1998-09-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.80
Price in other shops:
Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States: With Localities, Collecting Tips, and Illustrations of More than 450 Fossil Specimensby Jasper Burns
The Johns Hopkins University Press; Published: 1991-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.78
Price in other shops:
Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climateby William F. Ruddiman
Princeton University Press; Published: 2007-10-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.01
Price in other shops:
Gorgon: The Monsters That Ruled the Planet Before Dinosaurs and How They Died in the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's Historyby Peter Ward
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2005-02-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.49
Price in other shops:
Evolutionary Catastrophes: The Science of Mass Extinctionby Vincent Courtillot
Cambridge University Press; Published: 2002-03-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.73
Price in other shops:
Ice Ages: Solving the Mysteryby John Imbrie, Katherine Palmer Imbrie
Harvard University Press; Published: 2005-04-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.00
Price in other shops:
Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice Agesby Doug Macdougall
University of California Press; Published: 2006-05-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.57
Price in other shops:
The Hominid Individual in Context: Archaeological Investigations of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic landscapes, locales and artefactsby Clive Gamble
Routledge; Published: 2005-04-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $123.58
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice Agesby Doug Macdougall
University of California Press; Published: 2006-05-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.95
Price in other shops:
Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities: The Causes of Mass Extinctionsby Tony Hallam
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2005-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.74
Price in other shops:
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universeby Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee
Springer; Published: 2003-12-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.08
Price in other shops:
The Call of Distant Mammoths: Why the Ice Age Mammals Disappearedby Peter D. Ward
Springer; Published: 1997-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Agoby Douglas H. Erwin
Princeton University Press; Published: 2008-04-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.87
Price in other shops:
Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth (Princeton Science Library)by Andrew H. Knoll
Princeton University Press; Published: 2004-08-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.99
Price in other shops:
Rivers in Timeby Peter D. Ward
Columbia University Press; Published: 2002-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.10
Price in other shops:
Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Futureby Peter D. Ward
Collins; Published: 2007-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.20
Price in other shops:
When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Timeby Michael Benton
Thames & Hudson; Published: 2005-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.94
Price in other shops:
Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth's Ancient Atmosphereby Peter Ward
Joseph Henry Press; Published: 2006-09-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops: