Synopses & Reviews
The definitive book on dinosaurs for years to come: a sweeping and revelatory new history from one of our finest young scientists.
“The ultimate dinosaur biography…there is much to their story that has been left untold until now.” — Scientific American
The dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet’s great mysteries.
In this captivating narrative, Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field — naming fifteen new species and leading groundbreaking fieldwork — masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy.
Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. He re-creates the dinosaurs’ peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth’s history.
Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research — which he calls “a new golden age of discovery” — and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors.
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.
Review
“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 and Parasite Rex
Review
“An absorbing historical saga.…Brusatte tells this story with a comprehensive attention to detail.…[He] skillfully combines interesting and amusing stories from his field experience with the broader story of dinosaurs ruling the Earth....The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs abounds with this completely winning blend of technical expertise and storytelling ability, following the story of its many subjects into dozens and dozens of subplots as dinosaurs colonized every inch of the land, moved out into the ocean, and even took to the sky. Brusatte’s recounting of the millions of years of dinosaur dominance makes for very nerdy, very thrilling reading.” Christian Science Monitor
Review
“If John McPhee’s love affair with rocks in Annals of the Former World floats your boat… you’re going to love The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. Brusatte skillfully brings dead dino bones to life as he shares — no, gushes about — his personal journey as a young fossil hunter and the people he’s met along the way.…The geek in me loves the tsunami of fine details flooding the page, written in the breezy style of a rising star millennial scientist.…The beauty of this book lies in the details...and in the stories of the scientists who dig them up. [The] emotional connection, and Brusatte’s collection of personal stories and characters, make his book special.” New York Times Book Review
Review
“Scintillating....Brusatte’s mastery of his field, formidable explanatory powers and engaging style have combined to produce a masterpiece of science writing for the lay reader. I would add that you’ll find Rise and Fall fascinating even if you don’t give a damn about dinosaurs — but first, show me someone who doesn’t give a damn about dinosaurs.” Washington Post
Review
“The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a triumph, written by one of our young leaders of the field. Steve Brusatte brings new discoveries, a taste for a good yarn, and his infectious enthusiasm to the epic tales of paleontology. It is hard to read Brusatte and not love lost worlds.” Neil Shubin, bestselling author of Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body and Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Professor of Anatomy at the University of Chicago
About the Author
Steve Brusatte is a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he completed his doctorate at Columbia University. He writes frequently for Scientific American, including the May 2015 cover story on the evolution of tyrannosaurs. His academic research has been published in Nature and other leading journals, and he authored a leading paleontology textbook, Dinosaur Paleobiology. He is the “resident paleontologist” for BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs. A native of the Chicago area, he now lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Anne.