The Tycoons

Lukas Rieppel shows how dinosaurs gripped the popular imagination and became emblems of America's industrial power and economic prosperity during the Gilded Age. Spectacular fossils were displayed in museums financed by North America's wealthiest tycoons, to cement their reputation as both benefactors of science and fierce capitalists.

"In this eye-opening debut study, Frerick, an agricultural policy fellow at Yale University, reveals the ill-gained stranglehold that a handful of companies have on America's food economy…It's a disquieting critique of private monopolization of public necessities." —Publishers Weekly, starred

"In this eye-opening debut study, Frerick, an agricultural policy fellow at Yale University, reveals the ill-gained stranglehold that a handful of companies have on America's food economy…It's a disquieting critique of private monopolization of public necessities." —Publishers Weekly, starred