Impossible Monsters is the captivating story of the discovery of the dinosaurs and how it
upended our understanding of the origins of the world. 'An astonishing book about an
extraordinary subject' PETER FRANKOPAN 'As thrilling as it is sweeping' TOM HOLLAND 'This
book dazzles in its originality . . . a triumph' SATHNAM SANGHERA In 1811 a twelve-year-old
girl uncovered some strange-looking bones in Britain's southern shoreline. They belonged to no
known creature and were buried beneath a hundred feet of rock. Over the next two decades as
several more of these 'impossible monsters' emerged from the soil the leading scientists of
the day were forced to confront a profoundly disturbing possibility: the Bible as a historical
account of the Earth's origins was wildly wrong. This is the dramatic story of the crisis
that engulfed science and religion when we discovered the dinosaurs. It takes us into the lives
and minds of the extraordinary men and women who made these heretical discoveries those who
resisted them as well as the pioneering thinkers Darwin most famous among them who took
great risks to construct a new account of the earth's and mankind's origins. Impossible
Monsters is the riveting story of a group of people who not only thought impossible things but
showed them to be true. In the process they overturned the literal reading of the Bible
liberated science from the authority of religion and ushered in the secular age. 'Truly
marvellous ... an intellectual thriller' RICHARD HOLMES 'A stunning work ... of surprises and
revelations' STEVE BRUSATTE
