There is much that startles in Skeleton Keys, Brian Switek’s cultural history of bone, not least that bone is startling at all ... Switek is an affable guide, and affability is required when the depth and breadth of his subject is so vast, when many characters are fossils or skeletons and most field trips are to yet another museum. His tone can veer from chatty...to overly academic, and there is enough repetition that one could wish for a sharper editorial scalpel ... But now, when it comes to these 'endless forms most beautiful and wonderful,' to borrow Darwin’s words, I can see them better thanks to Switek’s keys.
Now comes a book about osteology that nearly promises to tell the reader almost all about bones except how to pick them ... Switek offers a compendium of organic chemistry, medical history, social science and institutional ethics ... It is a handsome book, the bi-colored dust jacket skeleton notwithstanding ... Mr. Switek’s core subject, bones, offers departure points for numerous tangents, including his disquisition on the current hot topic of the ownership of cultural remains, including bodies and bones.
Bones as active tissues, not fixed structures, is just one of the fascinating topics that writer Brian Switek explores in Skeleton Keys ... The author packs a bevy of...facts into illustrative tales of famed skeletons ... [a] wonderfully engaging read.
Brian Switek’s new book, Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone ... [weaves] together stories that bridge the disciplines of paleontology, anthropology, medicine, and forensics. In a freewheeling style, Switek addresses a series of topics that center on the ways that bones (human, dinosaur, what have you) intersect with our lives and cultures ... Perhaps the most important point of Skeleton Keys is its observation that bones raise questions not just of science but of ethics and law. Rather than mere museum relics, bones actively shape debates about cultural autonomy and identity. Our skeletons are the product of millions of years of evolution; how we think about those bones depends, in no small way, on our history and culture.
Switek does something challenging with ease and grace: He makes us care about a tiny protovertebrate with whom we ostensibly have nothing in common, but to whom we owe everything ... The reader feels safe in the author’s hands. We trust that he will tell us all we need to know to understand the story. As Switek transfers his attention almost seamlessly to prehistoric humans, we find that trust is well-placed ... There are moments when the author, a proponent of careful thought regarding social issues, veers off track, with varying degrees of success ... These insights into Switek’s mind are valuable, though perhaps he would have done better to grant them their own separate chapter and address them all together. Overall, however, it seems better to have a writer who thinks too much about such subjects than too little ... truly begins to flourish the closer we get to the present day, perhaps because Switek is delving deeper into topics many of us have heard of but not examined.
...a rich exploration of everything our bare bones can teach us about life ... a smorgasbord of interesting details ... nformative, contemplative, and even lyrical, Switek’s work is popular-science writing at its best.
...[a] wonderful study ... Switek concludes by musing on how he might himself be fossilized. This mix of fact and ethical considerations offers much for science enthusiasts to ponder.
