The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World Kindle Edition

I am in my 80's. I read dinosaur books (with lots of pictures of T-rex and Triceratops) to my kids who are almost 60! The pictures have not changed. I thought it was a lot of imaginative fun! That's all. After reading the history of mammals I decided to read a book about dinosaurs. I was impressed. It was exciting and in some spots a little dull. But the dull parts were all the details about the dinosaurs themselves and personal stories of finding fossils and what they meant. It was necessary to show me that the study of dinosaurs is no science fiction. This is a modern Sherlock Holmes participated in by many sleuths to piece together the early history of the earth we live on and the life that went before us. Amazing is the way these scientists doggedly keep on until they prove or disprove established theory upon which they move on.I used to think people who dug up bones were foolish, even for civilizations of people in the hundreds, even thousands of years, let alone dinosaurs who lived hundreds of millions of years ago. This book was surprising to me for the modern technology now used to analyze fossils. It was interesting, even entertaining to this former disbeliever. Finally, this book created in me a new respect for this historical and scientific field of study and the people who willingly give so much effort for us people and for science. Perhaps our world will prepare to deflect another comet or asteroid that might inevitably target Earth in the future. Education of our earthly human inhabitants may prevent what happened to the dinosaurs, at least from without our world. Maybe it will give more thought to somehow preventing a similar disaster in the future of our own making.

I loved dinosaurs as a kid, and still remember the first time I visited the dinosaur hall at The American Museum of Natural History near Central Park.We’ve learned a lot since the 1960s about how dinosaurs lived and what killed them off. This is an accessible summary of the newest thinking.

One of the best books I have read on dinosaurs! Educational, well written, and fascinating. Brusatte is an expert. A MUST READ!

This is a review from a reader who has purchased the hardcover, Kindle, and Audible editions of the book: the former for my bookshelf, the second for convenient reading, and the third just to complete the set since I had an Audible credit to burn at the time. Initially I bought Dr. Brusatte's book on a whim: it had occurred to me that paleontology had advanced by leaps and bounds since the nineties when I was actively learning about these prehistoric creatures. I thought, "Gee, it would be interesting to see how far it's all come since I was checking out books at the school library and playing '3D Dinosaur Adventure' on that crusty old PC." It certainly does a good job of catching one up on modern views of dinosaurs among paleontologists.First off, if you're the type of person who expects books on scientific subjects to be a drag to read, have no fear in this case. Steve Brusatte is clearly writing with a mentality very close to what an effective teacher needs to keep students engaged, which is to say: be entertaining, present the information in a lively way, give the audience's enthusiasm room to effectively drive their learning forward. This is not a dry fact-dump, but a "story," for want of a better description. It tells the history of the dinosaurs with vigor, often stepping into side-stories about the paleontologists who work to uncover and deduce the details of that story. Thus you learn not only about the dinosaurs, but about the many and varied intrepid men and women who work to find out all they can about them and other aspects of natural history.The book begins with a colorful description of what the world must have been like in the Permian period, transitioning into the Triassic, where dinosaurs were (contrary to previous belief) bit players, and this is a strong way to open, because it ties in with those side-stories about paleontology, and here we begin to see some discussion on the changing views about dinosaurs and how paleontologists can indeed be mistaken about their findings. It continues on from there. Readers of this book who are willing to and interested in learning about these topics will find this to be an excellent place to begin learning about dinosaurs and paleontology, and those already in the know will likely enjoy it as a refresher course.The hardcover edition is well-formatted, with a fitting selection of visually-pleasing yet easy-to-read text fonts and a fairly generous use of illustrations, photographs, and occasional diagrams where needed. The Kindle version is a little dodgier by the nature of what it is. The first paragraph or so of any given chapter sub-section has an oddly larger text font than the following paragraphs, but the only difficulty arises from those illustrations and such, which tend to be shrunk-down to fit whatever your display screen is... as is the case with most e-books, these elements do not make the smoothest transition, but this is a perfectly serviceable way to enjoy the book if you are reading it, say, on public transit, or on break at work.The audiobook's reading works quite well, though I note that at the time of this review Audible narration does not work for the Prologue chapter, even though it is indeed in the audiobook. I assume there was an oversight in programming, and have reported this to customer service. It may even have been fixed by the time you read this review. Other than that and the obvious lack of photographs and images in the audiobook, the manner in which this reading is presented may strike listeners as a tiny bit too geared toward younger audiences, with some exaggeration in voice tone when the reader wants things to sound exciting or intriguing that was quite a long way from how my mental voice vocalized the text while reading it independent of audio accompaniment. That said, it's a pleasant listen. I just hope they fix that Audible narration problem with the prologue.All in all, I highly recommend this book for those interested in the subject, especially in hardcover, as it's a very nice addition to anyone's bookshelf. Readers be forewarned, however. Paleontology is an advancing science at all times, and the information in this book is likely to go out of date in a surprisingly short span of time, as the educational material from the nineties and 2000's did. If you find it interesting enough to pursue, however, you might consider staying up-to-date on paleontological finds and theories on your own time by following the works of both Dr. Brusatte and others in his field. It certainly can't hurt to know more about the planet you were born on, yes?

Steve Brusatte makes a complicated subject highly readable. He combines his scientific expertise with good writing to make an entertaining book.

This is a fascinating and enjoyable read - and I recommend it to anyone interested in the history of dinosaur exploration. The author adopts a novel approach, offering a narrative consisting of two distinct elements. On the one hand, this is a tale about the dinosaurs themselves - how they lived, their habitats, ecosystems, etc. And on the other hand, it's a story about developments in the science of palaeontology (as relate to dinosaur excavation and investigation). The author - who is himself a palaeontologist - bends these two elements together, and shifts focus between them from one chapter to the next. So, for example, you'll get a chapter about the extinction event that ended the Cretaceous period - looking in detail at how this affected the dinosaurs. Then, in the following chapter, you'll read about the competing ideas offered by different scientists as regards the reason for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.This is not an academic textbook or scholarly treatise. Rather, it's a work in popular science. It's easy to read and understand. The subject matter is engrossing. Of course, the author simplifies much of what went on - as he covers a period of some 180 million years of dinosaur evolution and extinction. On occasion, he adopts a slightly hyperbolic stance - as if writing fiction (e.g. describing how a group of T. Rex's experienced the cataclysmic day that ended the Mesozoic era). Nonetheless, it's fun to read.

You really wonder how this book won popular science book of the year. Maybe it was the only one that year. Ha ha.Maybe there are different editions because my hardback is on cheap paper which doesn’t help the illustrations at all. These, in turn , are fairly sparse and could do with illustrations of the land masses during the 250 million years under discussion.I learned some interesting facts. Who knew that the T Rex was a latecomer and had a very short reign on earth; though longer than ours. Or that birds and dinosaurs share a complex breathing mechanism taking oxygen from the air on both the in and out breath?Yet despite wading through ages of facts I still had further questions. For a start does DNA analysis suggest that today’s birds are descended from just a few survivors of the asteroid impact or from many species. Ditto with today’s mammals. And very little discussion on mammals that lived through the Dinosaurs era.And there is a short piece on the fantastic discovery of colours in dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. The author correctly states that this is one of the greatest discoveries of our age. But then he doesn’t tell us the colours of a single one of these creatures! Or give us any colour illustrations.The science is presented in a dense way , but sometimes very irritating as he tries to liven it up. Maybe he does this in his classes in Edinburgh, in which case I am heading for Aberdeen.But others have pointed out what is worst about this book. The descriptions of his colleagues, almost all “Young” like something from the days of Harold Wilson. Private Eye might have called them ‘thrusting’.All are climbing the greasy and awful pole of an academic career. We hear about degrees, masters, doctorates...zzzz. Sorry dozed off there as , like for most people, adult life began before my mid thirties. The more the author tries to make these people interesting and exciting, the more glad you become that you will never have to meet them. Ever.

I have always been interested in paleontology in a very, very amateur way. I found this book very readable but the scientific names of the fossils used are hard to keep track of in my ageing brain. By the time I was about halfway through, though still enjoying the information, and admiring the ingenuity and intelligence that had gone into it's finding, I started to wonder what sort of people make a living by studying and devoting untold resources to finding out if a 100 million year old dead fossilised animal had this characteristic or another. All of the characters (fellow scientists) mentioned by the author sound like people I would be happy to avoid and would never, ever go to the pub with. His thumbnail sketches of these people can be summed up as wierdo obsessive geeks. This did put a bit of a damper on my enjoyment of the information being presented. Call me odd but there it is. When the author devotes himself to "factual" information he can write very well indeed his description of the Asteroid impact that did for the dinosaurs is very good as is his explanation of how dinosaurs did, in fact, survive to the present day... as birds.It was not quite the book I hoped for or expected but it is very good and I recommend it.

An extremely interesting and well explained popular science book. The evolution of the dinosaurs through the various time periods, and the eventual extinction of many of them is clearly laid out and convincingly argued (for now anyway). A subtitle of ‘the Rise and Rise of the Palaeontologists’ May also be suitable, but I found the history, and recent experience of fossil hunting, and examination to be interesting in itself The author brought it to life, and tied it in with the overall story of the dinosaurs. Not a definitive work - the pace of fossil discovery and scientific advancement in this field would make sure of that, it is nevertheless a concise, comprehensive guide to the dinosaurs and their world. Clearly explained, requiring only the odd resort to the dictionary, it leaves me knowing things my kids don’t know, for a brief period anyway, until the book is regurgitated, bit by bit by the dinogeeks on You Tube. A very interesting book, even for those no more than casually interested in the subject. A justifiable best seller

I enjoyed this book, mostly for the reasons I was expecting, but Brusatte writes a lot about his work as an paleontologist and collecting, collating and studying fossils and it provides a fascinating glimpse into the world of dinosaur study.I do think it perhaps goes a little too far into this though; this is a book called 'The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs' yet a great deal of it is autobiographical, which does let it down a little. The anecdotes and colleague name-dropping is a little off putting when you want to get immersed into the world of the Dinosaurs (of which he is incredibly knowledgeable)Nothing wrong with the autobiographical sections per se but perhaps it should be marketed more this way so the reader has an idea that large sections of the book are personal stories.