Review: The Age of Mammals: Nature, Development, & Paleontology in the Long Nineteenth Century, by Chris Manias

The uncanny was truly alive and well in the Age of Mammals. It stared back at 19th-century paleontologists from bulky fossil skulls unearthed in India and massive teeth excavated in North America. As science historian Chris Manias demonstrates in his remarkable work, The Age of Mammals, the paleontological and public interest in fossil mammals was driven by several factors, not least the sheer uncanniness of these forms—neither entirely familiar nor wholly alien. Manias traces the history of mammal paleontology through its evolving institutions, networks, and field sites across the globe, from the 19th century to World War I. The book is not a straightforward narrative; rather, it is loosely structured into four chronological yet predominantly thematic parts: discovering fossils and defining mammals; ordering and conventionalizing the Age of Mammals; heterogeneity in the field; and finally, concerns over loss and decline as the Age of Mammals gave way to the...