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The Bone War of McCurtain County

Having loved dinosaurs (who didn't?), imagined myself as an Indiana Jones of old bones, and strolling wide-eyed through various natural museums soaking in the fossilized remains of prehistoric giants, I was delighted when I received this book to read.  I simply thought it would be a academic type account of the finding of some rare bones in a overlooked corner of Oklahoma in the middle 1980's.   Appearances, and assumptions, can be mistaken.   The book is a complex, riveting, and rollar coaster ride through a vicious tug-of-war between corporate greed, individual capitalist endeavor, and academic snobbery. Author Russell Ferrell has uncovered a "Peyton Place" of real palentogological history! Coming in at just over 400 pages, The Bone War of McCurtain County by Russell Ferrell (Rabelius Publishing, Waxahachie, Texas, 2013) , is a story of a "Backwoods Hillbilly and Choctaw Indian" as they battle for "treasure, truth and justice."    It the cla...

NO BONES ABOUT IT - A GOOD READ

Acrocanthosaurus The Bones of Contention  by Russell Ferrell.  Subtitled  The True Story of Cephis Hall and Sid Love The Arkansas Hillbilly and the Choctaw Indian Who Outsmarted the Corporation and Saved the Dinosaur (Paperback) After finishing the Russell Ferrell work Acrocanthosaurus: The Bones of Contention (Historical Dimensions, 2011) there is an instinctive desire to mutter a loud, "wow!"  In 448 pages the author has packed a story whose complexity, importance, and historical value can only be described as 'epic.' In the story of how two intelligent and capable amateurs were finally able to prevail against corporate greed,intimidation, academic short-shortsightedness, research rivalries, and worse is an important lesson for everyone. The author so completely explains the history, processes, and meaning of events that, even a reader without any knowledge of southeast Oklahoma, dinosaurs, fossil hunting, or confusions of legal and political activity- can clear...