meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The John Batchelor Show

THE EXTREMELY PATIENT BARNUM BROWN: 1/4: The Monster's Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World Hardcover by David K. Randall (Author)

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

THE EXTREMELY PATIENT BARNUM BROWN: 1/4: The Monster's Bones: The Discovery of T. Rex and How It Shook Our World Hardcover by David K. Randall (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Bones-Discovery-Shook-World/dp/1324006536

In the dust of the Gilded Age Bone Wars, two vastly different men emerge with a mission to fill the empty halls of New York’s struggling American Museum of Natural History: Henry Fairfield Osborn, a privileged socialite whose reputation rests on the museum’s success, and intrepid Kansas-born fossil hunter Barnum Brown.

When Brown unearths the first Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils in the Montana wilderness, forever changing the world of paleontology, Osborn sees a path to save his museum from irrelevancy. With four-foot-long jaws capable of crushing the bones of its prey and hips that powered the animal to run at speeds of 25 miles per hour, the T. Rex suggests a prehistoric ecosystem more complex than anyone imagined. As the public turns out in droves to cower before this bone-chilling giant of the past and wonder at the mysteries of its disappearance, Brown and Osborn together turn dinosaurs from a biological oddity into a beloved part of culture.

Vivid and engaging, The Monster’s Bones journeys from prehistory to present day, from remote Patagonia to the unforgiving badlands of the American West to the penthouses of Manhattan. With a wide-ranging cast of robber barons, eugenicists, and opportunistic cowboys, New York Times best-selling author David K. Randall reveals how a monster of a bygone era ignited a new understanding of our planet and our place within it.

1911 FIELD COLUMBIAN MUSEUM

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Have you ever felt like escaping to your own desert island?

0:03.8

Jane Gaskin did exactly that,

0:06.2

trading in the family home to begin a new life in the tropics.

0:09.9

But she soon discovers that Paradise has its secrets.

0:13.4

I'm Alice Levine, and this is the price of Paradise,

0:17.8

the island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption, and murder. Wish you were here. Follow the price of Paradise Now, wherever

0:26.7

you listen to podcasts. This is CBS I on the World.

0:34.0

This is CBS I on the World.

0:37.0

Here's John Bachelor.

0:40.0

This is CBS I in the World. I'm John Bachelor. It is the spring of 1900.

0:47.0

Barnum Brown arrives in New York City from Patagonia. This is the tale of the search for the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The T-Rex, now displayed at the American Museum of Natural History, has a backstory and a wonderful new book, The Monsters Bones, the

1:06.6

discovery of T-Rex and how it shook our world.

1:10.0

David K Randall is the author.

1:12.4

He works at Reuters, but in his day job,

1:16.1

but in his night job, he travels like Arthur Conendoyle

1:19.7

and the scientist Challenger to search out the T-Rex, the origin of T-Rex and how it is that we have

1:27.0

T-Rex as the Apex predator whoever lived on the planet Earth.

1:33.6

David, congratulations and good evening to you and thank you very much.

1:37.7

Barnum Brown arrives from Patagonia where he's been searching for bones. Immediately he's turned around and sent back out by

1:45.5

the American Museum of Natural History because there is a bones race which I think of is a moon

1:51.5

race or an Arctic race underway between museums and

1:56.4

collections the Carnegie Museum and Andrew Carnegie himself the American Museum

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.