Critical history for tomorrow’s paleontology / Критически важная история для палеонтологии будущего

As an historian, my contribution in this Element will be centered on the historiography of paleontology, or the different ways in which paleontologists and historians have been engaging with paleontology’s past. The main thesis is as follows: How the history of paleontology is being told and shared has a role to play in making paleontology more accessible1 and equitable. How any community, including the paleontological community, relates to its past and summons it in the present helps define some of its future. This Element introduces a new and growing historiography of paleontology as a valuable resource forany one (students, educators, researchers, curators, volunteers, community leaders, etc.) seeking to make the study of the Earth’s deep past benefits to and from a diversity of people worthy of the diversity of life it brights to light. <...>