The Field Museum

by Cheryl Bardoe

This coffee-table miniature combines past, present, and future in a sweeping overview of The Field Museum's background, current exhibitions, and vision. With entertaining text by Cheryl Bardoe and over 100 color pictures.

Genres: Nonfiction, Museums, History

80 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Cheryl Bardoe is the author of several acclaimed books for young readers, including China: A History; Nothing Stopped Sophie: The Story of Unshakable Mathematician Sophie Germain; and Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age. She lives in Connecticut.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally visited the Field in Chicago recently, and the museum itself was just as good as I'd heard and hoped. However, the main gift store was under renovation, so wasn't able to look for any guidebooks there. DID come home and find this one online for just $4, but…well, you get what you pay for. I was hoping for something like the Smithsonian's excellent Official Guide To The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History; but this one is NOT a true guidebook; more a very general, self-promoting introduction to what the museum does and has, along with mentions of many of the museums curators, a lot of whom I would assume are no longer there as the book is a dozen years out of date. I did discover one interesting thing, though; the book mentions "pre-solar diamonds," which I Googled but still don't quite understand, but which still sound really cool in a "MARVEL universe" kinda way, (they should have been one of the stones in the Infinity Gauntlet, except that they're apparently only nanometers in diameter).

Amusingly, GR describes this as a "coffee-table miniature," whatever the hell that is. I mean, yeah — it is miniature (about 8" x 8") and has pictures (also small); but there's absolutely nothing "coffee table" about it…so, y'know, a book.

Amazon does also show an actual 2023 Field Museum of Natural History Guide — but no way I'm spending $35 sight unseen…so again, would have been nice it they'd had a functioning gift store while I was there so that I could have looked this over.

[Joy Weese Moll · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a slim volume from the gift store of The Field Museum, the natural history museum in Chicago.

More on my blog, including other books I read during a Chicago trip, Books about Chicago

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice primer on the museum. Written for a younger (middle school?) reading level.

[TJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

During a recent visit to the Field Museum I purchased this book. It has a great overview of the history of the museum, the collections and the work they do outside of the museum walls. I found it very interesting to learn about their works with other agencies and groups, how they are working on sharing knowledge and help with habitat protection studies. The book has lots of great photos.