Section - i: Prologue: The Golden Age of Discovery Chapter - 1: The Dawn of the Dinosaurs Chapter - 2: Dinosaurs Rise Up Chapter - 3: Dinosaurs Become Dominant Chapter - 4: Dinosaurs and Drifting Continents Chapter - 5: The Tyrant Dinosaurs Chapter - 6: The King of the Dinosaurs Chapter - 7: Dinosaurs at the Top of Their Game Chapter - 8: Dinosaurs Take Flight Chapter - 9: Dinosaurs Die Out Section - ii: Epilogue: After the Dinosaurs Acknowledgements - iii: Acknowledgements Section - iv: Notes on Sources Index - v: Index
Before there were Homo sapiens there were the dinosaurs. A thrilling re-evaluation of the creatures that ruled the earth for 150 million years by one of the world's leading paleontologists.
Dr Steve Brusatte is a paleontologist on the faculty of the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He has a BS in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago, MSc in Palaeobiology from the University of Bristol (UK), and PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Columbia University in New York.
Thrilling . . . the best book on the subject written for the
general reader since the 1980s.
*The Sunday Times*
A gripping read in the best traditions of popular science
*The Observer*
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a lovely book. Brusatte has a
wonderful knack for conjuring vivid worlds out of a few shards of
petrified bone. He is excellent company as a narrator, steering a
course between pedantry and patronising oversimplification with
flair, and unafraid to guide the reader through some fairly
complicated patches of science when he feels it is worth it.
*The Times*
A vibrant view of how dinosaurs originated and what happened to our
Mesozoic favourites. Brusatte is as adept a scientific storyteller
as any reader could ask for.
*The Spectator*
A masterpiece of science writing
*The Washington Post*
An up-to-the-minute account of the long history and remarkable
biology of the extraordinary animals that capture the imagination
of every child. The dinosaurs are much more varied than the popular
picture of lumbering giants and matching meat eaters. Steve
Brusatte expertly leads the reader through the latest discoveries
to unravel their great range of lifestyles in a vanished world. He
explores the research that led to the realisation that dinosaurs
Iive on - as birds. The book is an appropriate antidote to the
hubris that puts our human species at the centre of the living
world.
*Professor Richard Fortey*
Steve Brusatte is doing some of the most exciting research on
dinosaurs today, and he brings that excitement to The Rise and Fall
of the Dinosaurs. Whether he’s recounting remarkable fossil
discoveries or explaining millions of years of evolutionary change,
Brusatte shows just how much our understanding of dinosaurs has
changed in just the past decade.
*Carl Zimmer, author of Evolution: Making Sense of Life*
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a work of solid modern
science, updating the fallacies and fancies of antiquated
paleontology, revealing the quantum leaps in understanding of this
modern science. But it is more than that. It is a personal quest
full of enthusiasm and joy, getting beneath the dust to reveal the
scales and the feathers of dinosaurs.
*Steve Backshall, Naturalist and BBC TV Presenter*
Steve Brusatte's The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a triumph.
Written by one of our young leaders of the field, he brings new
discoveries, a taste for a good yarn, and his infectious enthusiasm
to some of the epic tales of paleontology. It is hard to read
Brusatte and not love lost worlds.
*Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish*
As a scientist on the front lines of discovery, Brusatte delivers a
cutting-edge account of Earth's most awe-inspiring age, and does so
with great skill, humor and wonder. In his thrilling account of the
revolutions and innovations that brought dinosaurs to rule the
world for a near eternity, Brusatte captures both the majesty of
the creatures he studies, as well as the breathtaking evolutionary
ride that transformed these once scrawny also-rans into the
myth-making tyrants of legend. It's the most epic chapter of earth
history, and here it's told vividly by one of the world's top
paleontologists.
*Peter Brannen, author of The Ends of the World*
With his new book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs esteemed
palaeontologist and author Steve Brusatte shows that the fun,
fascinating and fact-filled story of the dinosaurs is still very
much alive after 66 million years. Simply, a must read.
*Ben Garrod, BBC TV presenter*
Fantastic . . . Superbly illustrated with photos and art, this is
popular-science writing at its best.
*Nancy Bent*
This is scientific storytelling at its most visceral, striding with
the beasts through their Triassic dawn, Jurassic dominance, and
abrupt demise in the Cretaceous.
*Nature*
The ultimate dinosaur biography
*Scientific American*
[Brusatte's] captivating text explores the excitement associated
with searching for and discovering new dinosaur species, provides
clues to many long-standing questions associated with dinosaurs. .
. a mix of memoir, chronicling Brusatte’s personal odyssey from a
child smitten by dinosaurs to a member of a vibrant scholarly
community, and first-rate science writing for the general
public.
*Publishers Weekly*
A must-have for fans of ancient reptiles and their lost world.
*Kirkus Reviews*
He is a working scientist in the early stages of his career, so his
tales have a freshness and an engaging immediacy that you don’t get
from the pens of scientists long past their productive years and
with the leisure to write. Like Alexander Hamilton, he really does
write as though he’s running out of time, so one can excuse him if
his style bubbles over into breathlessness. And best of all, he
gives an extensive bibliography of semi-popular and scholarly
sources, many of them so new that the ink is hardly dry. This is
science at first hand, meant for grown-ups.
*The Literary Review*
Kind in tone and generous in description...[this] memoirlike
writing is silly and lovable, making for one big adventure.
*The Paris Review*
Full of adventures and humour. Abundant photographs and
illustrations bring these stories to life
*Science*
Excellent...a superb combination of good argument and good
writing.
*Matt Ridley*
Brusatte skillfully brings dead dino bones to life as he shares -
no, gushes about - his personal journey as a young fossil hunter
andthe people he’s met along the way… The beauty of this book lies
in the details, too, and in the stories of the scientists who dig
them up.
*New York Times Book Review*
Brusatte is one of the stars of modern paleontology...he has
discovered 10 new dinosaur species. He has also led groundbreaking
scientific studies that have rewritten the history of these
magnificent creatures which, thanks to Hollywood and countless
children stories, haunt our imaginations today like never
before…Brusatte tells the epic tale of the dinosaurs’ rise to
dominance and extinction, taking us on a thrilling journey back in
time.
*National Geographic*
Rawwrghhh! Millions of years ago dino roars echoed across the
earth. This vivid book takes us back. Meet the argentinosaurus, the
largest land animal to have lived, and the allosaurus, a nasty
predator with horns over its eyes. Steve Brusatte brings dinosaurs
alive for a new generation.
*The Times, Saturday Review, The best nonfiction to read on holiday
this summer*
Brusatte’s up-to-date survey of the current state of
palaeontological knowledge is the best book on dinosaurs written
for the general reader since the 1980s.
*The Times, The 100 best books to read this summer*
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