Re: Interest in dinosaurs

["Ilja Nieuwland" <i.j.j.nieuwland@let.rug.nl>]

th81@umail.umd.edu wrote:

> So, having now used up what would have been the opening to my memoirs (;-
),
> I question for professionals and fans alike: what got you into dinosaurs?  I
> would particularly like to hear from anyone who can honestly admit they
> didn't have an interest in dinosaurs UNTIL they saw "Jurassic Park" or "JP:
> The Lost World".
> 
In my case it was the Zdenek Burian/Zdenek Spinar 1974 book 'Leven in de 
oertijd' (Dutch for "Life before Man"), and even more the pictures inside, that 
got 
me going. Remember the Brachiosaurus standing in the lake up to its head, 
the hunchbacked Tyrannosaurus, Pteranodon throwing fish at its young on a 
cliff and the 'thumbs up" Iguanodon? Dino books were rather rare in the 
Netherlands then (and still are), and I cannot remember a single birthday that 
I 
looked forward to than my seventh which should have brought this wonderful 
tome. Imagine the immense disillusionment when my folks presented me with 
a brand new bicycle... Had to work for that one.

Also, I quite vividly remember the Dutch translation of Adrian Desmond's The 
Hot-blooded Dinosaurs, which must have been the first non-fiction book without 
(or virtually without) pictures I read in a single day. Some people have 
slighted 
this work because of its supposed lack of palaeontological accuracy, but in my 
opinion that doesn't give enough credit to the importance it has had in 
furthering 
the 'dinosaur renaissance'.Certainly the best work I know on 20th-century 
dinosaurology.

This was all in the seventies, i.e. obvious pre-JP times. Both books still take 
a 
prominent, albeit slightly disintegrating position on my shelves. Reminds me to 
have them re-bound.

Ilja




Ilja Nieuwland

   Research Assistant
   History Department
   Groningen University
   P.O. Box 716
   NL-9700 AS GRONINGEN
   The Netherlands
   Tel. (+31) 50 / 363 7249
   Fax  (+31) 50 / 363 7253