In the nineteenth century, eminent Victorian scientists began their own studies of the mammoth. The Rev. William Buckland, Sir Richard Owen, and field scientist Hugh Falconer were all admirers of Cuvier's work on mammoths. It was during the nineteenth century that the mammoth and early humans began to appear in works of fiction, and some paleontologists not only published scholarly non-fiction works but also action-adventure novels depicting the harsh struggles of early humans against nature.
In Part IV: Scenarios, Cohen discusses how the relationship of extinct and extant proboscoideans has been variously proposed, as well as different extinction theories and how mammoths might possibly be brought back. (She holds out little hope for either cloning a mammoth directly or in creating a mammoth-elephant hybrid.) Cohen is not afraid of speaking her opinion, and her characterizations of many scientists, both past and present, can be a bit harsh to the reader.
If you are looking for about specifically about mammoths, then Fate of the Mammoth is not what you want, but as a book about the history of paleontology and the role that the mammoth has played in developing the science of paleontology into what it is today, Fate of the Mammoth is a fascinating read. As Cohen has commented that the mammoth is the totem animal of paleontology, and we can see how the study of paleontology has changed over the last few centuries by examining how our perception and understanding of the mammoth has changed during that time.
Claudine Cohen teaches the History of Science at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris, France. She is also a fellow at the New York Center for Scholars and Writers. Her previous books include La Genese de Telliamed: Theorie de la terre et histoire naturelle a l'aube des Lumieres; L'Homme des origines: Savoirs et fictiones en prehistoire and Boucher des Perthes: Les Origines romantiques de la prehistoire (with Jean-Jacques Hublin).
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