Another review

Today, I have a review on Booklist Online. It will also go out in their weekly news letter. It's recommended both for adults and teens. Since it's behind a subscription wall, I'll quote the whole thing here:

Discovering the Mammoth: A Tale of Giants, Unicorns, Ivory, and the Birth of a New Science. McKay, John J. (Author) Aug 2017. 256 p. Pegasus, hardcover, $27.95. (9781681774244). 569.6.
Humans and mammoths coexisted until 10,000 years ago, but in the intervening years, humans lost that knowledge, even though they continued to find mammoth bones and trade in their ivory. In the seventeenth century, the recovery of teeth and bones of giant land mammals validated, for some, the existence of the mythical creatures described in the Christian Bible and local folklore until a modern elephant skeleton was first seen in Europe, and observational connections were made. But how could elephants, hot-weather animals, have gotten to North America and Europe? The great deluge described in the Bible was one explanation. Giant bones from a similar time frame were found in North America. Russian expeditions to map routes to Asia led explorers through some of the most fertile areas for mammoth ivory and bones. A nearly complete mammoth found in Siberian glacial ice helped to fill gaps in scientific knowledge and place this extinct species in the animal kingdom. McKay masterfully weaves an intricate story of the events, politics, people, and scientific development associated with the “rediscovery” of mammoths. — Dan Kaplan

Heh. "Masterfully."

Book update

The book has been printed. The printer started shipping to wholesalers last week. It should finally work it's way into your local bookstore the first week in August.

Meanwhile, the British science journal, Nature, is planning to review it and the Christian Science Monitor will be interviewing me for their review page.

What is history?

My answer to a Quora question:

History is a useful narrative constructed from what we know about the past. Let me unpack that bit by bit.

"History is a ... narrative..." History is not an accurate reproduction of the past and it is not all of the facts. History is a story (as the word indicates). We know he names and home towns all of the soldiers involved in D-Day. We know what many of them ate that day. We know the technical specs of their weapons, who designed, and who manufactured them. We know the logistics of getting them to the beach, the support efforts, and the casualties. To wrote a history of that day, the historian has to pick and choose through all of the raw data--the facts--to decide what is necessary to tell the story they want to tell.

"History is ... useful..." No historian is completely random in picking their narrative. Again, look at military history. A narrative based on the same data/facts might describe a glorious victory, a unredeemed tragedy, or illustrate some aspect of the human condition. Facts and interpretation are two different things. This is why conservatives get so upset about how history is taught in the schools. Each new generation of historians reinterprets the same facts in the light of their experiences. Conservatives want history to be carved in stone. Facts are facts. History isn't facts; history is interpretation of facts.

"History is ... constructed from what we know..." We can't know everything. This is obvious in the far past where we take every tiny data point and try to squeeze as much information as we can from it. Every decade or so we have an earthshaking discovery in ancient history. Here is a city that dominated this trade route for three centuries and this changes everything we thought we knew about the cities on either end of that trade route. Even in something as information rich as the D-Day example, there is an enormous amount we don't know. What were the conversations that led to important decisions. Who knew what and when did they now it.

It's an historian's cliche to refer to history as a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, and no box to show us what the picture should look like, and no edge pieces, and a few handfuls of pieces from other puzzles added, and a hyperactive cat in the house, and half the pieces are wet... and that's why we love it.

To my journalist and media savvy friends

This is an expanded version of something I just put on Facebook. Most of my Facebook friends know I currently live in Anchorage, Alaska. I hope here to get some advice from a wider audience.

Here's a gratuitous mammoth picture so you'll stop and read the post.

My mammoth book comes out in six weeks. I need to do what I can to help promote it. My publisher is sending out review copies to some science magazines. I'm thinking more local. Who should I point them to at Alaska Dispatch News for a review? Would any of the columnists be interested in a local author piece (this goes for the whole northwest. I lived in Seattle for twenty-five years)? What about readings and signings now that Titlewave (the main independent bookstore in Anchorage) is no longer selling new books? Podcasts (can be anywhere, not just Anchorage)? Any ideas for local opportunities or further afoot? Events at museums or guest lectures for paleontology classes?

I'm trying to find some way to move back to the Seattle area. If I do get back, I'd love to arrange events at Elliott Bay Books (where I used to work), the University Bookstore, Powells in Portland, and all points between. Maybe Seattle Times or other regional papers would be interested? Again, does anyone know who would be the best person to query? Bigger papers get lots of unsolicited books to review; as with everything, a contact is infinitely better than a cold call.

PS - As a writer, I am available to write "what this latest discovery means" pieces. I'm also open to mentoring on how to sell such stories. If you're a writer with experience at this, teaching me would be good exposure (#PleaseDontHurtMe).

We Have a Review!

Publisher's Weekly, the trade journal of the publishing industry, chose the Discovering the Mammoth to be reviewed this week. They can only review a fraction of the new books each week, so I think this is a good sign.

It's me

I don't usually post pictures of myself online. None of my social media avatars are pictures. But, the publisher needed a dust jacket photo, so I may as well share it. After all, it's going to be printed by the millions when my book becomes an international, runaway bestseller.

Book Update

Last night, at around midnight, I finished the last revisions on my book and shipped it off to publisher. My editor will be taking it to the London Book Fair next month. She also told me Nature has requested a review copy.

Amazons on a map

While reviewing some of the illustrated maps I used for the book, I've taken to hunting for Amazons. This group is on the Pierre Desceliers 1550 map of the world. The map was probably commissioned as a gift for Henry II of France.

Amazons
Above is the illustration of a thing worthy of memory and of being described, that is, strange and barbarous women who are experts at war and who are called Amazons. They number about 200 million, alone without men for some time. When they return victorious from battle, they are loved by their husbands with whom they go only once a year, and only to have children. If they have a son, they nourish him for six months and then give him to his father; if it's a daughter, they keep and raise her to train in feats of arms.

According to map historian Chet van Duzer, the text likely comes from an edition of Ptolemy's Geography published earlier that century (he mentions four possible contenders). As was the case with illustrated maps of that century, the placement of decorations on Descelier's wasn't random. Mapmakers were trying to make sense of a new discoveries coming in every day. Monsters, new animals, foreign monarchs, and historical events were placed in their approximate correct locations.

The Amazon army on this map is shown north of the Caspian Sea marching westward toward "Region de Mithridates." This mangles two Amazon legends together and mis-locates the kingdom of Mithridates, but he deserves points for trying. He is attempting to make sense of contradictory ancient sources and integrate them with new discoveries. Central and Northeastern Asia, despite bordering the Old World civilizations remain badly understood for another two centuries.

NOTE: I earlier wrote about this map and my reasons for studying it here.

Book Update

My publisher, Pegasus Books, has released their summer catalog for next year and guess who is in it? This means it's starting to show up on the pages of Amazon and other fine booksellers. When I pointed this out on Saturday, some of my friends went pre-ordered copies. This gives it a sales ranking in the Amazon system and, as of today, it is the #1 New Release in Science > Fossils.

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Powell's (Portland)
Elliott Bay Book Company (Seattle)

I worked at Elliott Bay for three years. I hope I get to do a reading there. If you have a favorite independent bookstore that you'd like to give a shout out to, mention them in the comments.

Where are you going little ship full of wolves?

Olaus Magnus' 1539 map of Scandinavia, the Baltic Sea, and the North Atlantic, entitled the Carta Marina is a milestone of European cartography. At the time, it was by far the most accurate map of the region that had ever been made. Along with the correct geographic details and placements of human settlements, Magnus covered the map with hundreds of drawings of human history, ethnography, and natural history. Sixteen years later, he published a book expanding on those topics, entitled Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (History of the Northern Peoples). For the book, he prepared 481 woodcut illustrations (including some duplicates). Of the illustrations, 124 are adapted directly from the map while many others include elements from the map.

Unfortunately, many interesting illustrations from the map didn't make it into the book. We have no way of knowing what they indicate. Other illustrations, prepared for the book, don't always match the text of the chapters they've been paired with. I'm working on a couple of blog posts about strong women in the Historia. While I do that, let me share some of my favorite illustrations.

Before I offer the first illustration, let me make my excuses. Although he was Swedish, Magnus wrote his book in Latin. At the time, there weren't even that many Swedes who wrote and read Swedish, and he was a Catholic priest. I can bludgeon my way through Latin well enough to get the gist of a text, but I'm not going to spend a whole afternoon to get a clean literary translation for the caption to a picture only a few dozen people are going to look at (unless I really like the picture). Next, the good commentary on his illustrations appears to be primarily A) in Swedish and B) not online. I might be horribly wrong in my interpretations of the illustrations. I hope that makes them more fun to look at.

Here are the wolves:

They are sailing eastward across the Baltic south of the island of Gotland and parallel to an ice-bound Polish coast. I believe the indication of ice-bound waters was an innovation of this map. Their eagerly anticipated goal appears to be in the neighborhood of Memel, Prussia, now in Lithuania.

But, are they wolves? I checked all of the illustrations in the Historia looking for boats in the Baltic Sea, both for this story and another. I found another illustration, set farther north in the Baltic Sea, that is intriguing, puzzling, and tragic all at once.

The title of the chapter is "About horses of Sveica and Gothica, why they are preferred to others, and exported." The illustration shows a barefoot man on the shore. Next to him is a large horse. He holds one arm up, with the forefinger extended above the horse. The other arm is extended downward at a tied-up ship full of animals (they resemble my wolves, but are they horses?) who look away from him. Another boat is still at sea in the upper right corner filled with animals that have ears and horns (goats? How many animals are sailing around the Baltic? This question will come up later). The bottom right quarter is filled with a disturbing vignette of two or three horses at sea, trying to climb onto icefloes.

The chapter explains that the horses Sveica and Gothica [the core provinces of Sweden] are in demand for export, but that there is a royal edict against selling warhorses. Do the horse, the man, and the boat full of animals represent an honest trader dividing superior war-quality horses from shamed exportable horses? This is followed by a lot of text demonstrating how much they love their horses, including a poem. He then mentions the lively horses of the island of Oelandiæ (Elandia on the map, Öland in modern Sweden). He says they are lively and ready for action and then something about dancing dogs that I haven't properly translated. In this case, are we looking at a well trained troop of performing animals? The dog/wolves are looking away because they are waiting for their cue. This is not as crazy as it sounds. There will be other animals on boats.

So, who are the sly animals on the boat?

Note: Online you can find many images taken from the less detailed second edition of the Carta Marina. There are only two copies of the first edition that have survived. This is the map I'm using for all my posts. The book, the Historia, was translated and reprinted many times. For my images and my text, I'm using the first, Latin edition from this site. If you write about this, please link and credit carefully.