Customer Reviews

The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon

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The dinosaur continues to evolve- and for now it's alive and well as this compelling look at dinosaur images artfully affirms. Just as Rudolph Zallinger's sweeping mural, reproduced in Chapter 31, "synthesizes the understanding of dinosaurs in the modern period", Mitchell's comprehensive and insightful book brings together myriad representations of the dinosaur and offers fascinating contexts in which to explore the role of this imagery in the 20th century. From aliens to The Far Side, from Thomas Jefferson to Indiana Jones, the author suggests this familiar cultural icon depicts life as we both wish it and fear it to be. The evolving image of the dinosaur has much to teach the modern reader, and this stunning book is its greatest visual aid.

THE LAST DINOSAUR BOOK elucidates the value of cultural studies. It powerfully frames a discussion about what we are as a culture while bypassing all the standard cliches. In the "totem" of the dinosaur, Mitchell is able to see a kaleidoscope of ambivalent pulls upon the fibers of our motivations. Utilizing various cultural phenomena, Mitchell makes clear in a comprehensive fashion why the dinosaur so well speaks for our cultural unconscious and the changes it is going through in the way of "sex, money, politics, and nature." The dinosaur does this in many ways because it is a category (if not actual phenomena) that we as moderns created and as post-moderns recreated. In a sense, the "dinosaur" itself, as a category, is a powerful "over-reading." How odd then that Mitchell should be accused of over-interpretation, when he is merely being a responsible critic who refuses to deny that which is of interest in our culture and quite undogmatically offers us some tools to begin to engage some of the dominant yet contradictory symbols of our culture. This is a vital book that cuts across disciplines and makes us realize what cultural studies is for.

This gorgeous book is like a coffee-table book you can actually read! It's fun, engaging, and even silly at times, yet the overall experience is even more satisfying than watching Jurassic Park.

I loved Mitchell's playful way of using visual evidence from our culture--cartoons, book covers, installation art, children's toys, film clips--to show us something profound about ourselves. Some of the controversy over this book might have to do with a resistance to demystifying our obsession with dinosaurs--a resistance that would entirely support Mitchell's thesis.

I found this book interesting and fun to read. It contains lots of ideas, facts, and pictures about dinosaurs and the history of dinosaurs. Especially interesting is the way Tom Mitchell shows how society's perceptions of this mighty group of creatures has changed over time so that dinosaurs somehow always manage to represent the most current economic and scientific trends. I also enjoyed the section that delves into the possible reasons small children (and perhaps others) identify with dinos, especially the Calvin & Hobbs cartoons. I found the comments throughout the book delineating the unremitting dance between science and the humanities with pertinent critiques to both sides to be thought-provoking, not to mention somewhat comforting, given my belief that we need to question everything. After all, not even science can provide all the answers. Finally, this book contains a wealth of references to other literary and artistic works about dinosaurs. It could function as a starting point for someone who might want to research the topic. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in dinosaurs, American history, and popular culture. My only question is this: what will the person who writes the next book about dinosaurs call their book? May the dino live long and prosper!

Read and find out. In this engaging book, cultural critic and historian WJT Mitchell will convince even the most skeptical reader that dinosaurs are amongst us, around us, in us--a thriving cultural icon of our time. Mitchell has written this book to include the reader beyond the academy. Consequently, it is "popular" writing at its finest: learned, witty, sophisticated. Ignore those sour reviews in the NYT, and read.

I admit, I'm a dinophile. Well, actually a paleo-phile since I'm interested in all aspects of paleontology. So I thought this book would be a clever examination of the influence of dinosaurs in popular culture. Well...

I think Mitchell suffers from the problem that most scholars in the Arts face today: ignorance of empirical methods. Instead of letting the facts build into a conclusion, these people make the facts fit a conclusion that they have already determined. They let their own beliefs influence their judgement, then--paradoxically--discount any other field's opposing viewpoint as biased by popular persception.

While this book can be read simply as an interesting examination of the times and circumstances in which "dinomania" gripped our country, the reader needs to take many of Mitchell's conculsions with a grain of salt. Instead of a detailed look at a broad spectrum of dinosaurs icons in popular culture, he only focuses those individual occurances that prove his conclusions. Are these conclusions right? The reader has no way of determining that because not enough examples are given for arguments to stand on there own.

If you buy this book, do so for the facts about dinosaur history and the excellent illustrations. Just be a little skeptical when drawing your own conclusions.

This book is the worst of postmodern popular criticism--well, not the worst. The author is fairly comprehensible, unlike many of his colleagues. However, he is so full of his own cleverness and so enmeshed in a really tired critical pomo framework that this book becomes incredibly annoying to read. What a lost opportunity. This could have been a useful analysis of a cultural phenomenon--buy it for the nice design and photos if you must have every dinosaur book in print, but don't bother reading it.

,Mitchell has an evil, wonderful sense of humor. I'm just surprised the town folks haven't come for him with burning faggots and pitchforks. A few dinosaur paleontologists out there would happily turn him into a fossil. Micropaleontologists will love it. Only In America could big, dopey lizards achieve cult status. What a country! What a lovely book -- half-academic, one-quarter Lenny Bruce, one eighth George Orwell, and the final eighth Tom Wolfe.

Nobody, it's been said, ever learns anything, and if ever a book proved the thesis it's this one. What is hard to understand about this book for the average reader is that though it is written in a very readable style it actually isn't aimed at the average reader alone. It is actually meant for other academics and what used to be known as "the Left," that rabble that is now, I suppose, dead and gone forever. In the days when there used to be people like that around people could talk about such things as human freedom and such without everyone just simply falling down laughing, but nowadays we are all grown up, and this book is meant to signal to the last holdouts that they have to grow up too. This message can be found in the last chapter in the book, which discusses what is rapidly becoming a signpost of our times, the "Sokol Affair," which definitively put an end, I guess, to any thought of what used to be called literature. Though "The Last Dinosaur Book" can be read as interesting in its own right, to the wiser mind it is also a tremendously sad moment--a moment that, to the wise and canny mind, also signals something serious about the state of America today.