| The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs | |
| Author: | Steve Brusatte |
| Illustrator: | Todd Marshall |
| Subject: | Evolution and extinction of dinosaurs |
| Publisher: | Mariner Books |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Isbn: | 978-0-06-249043-8 |
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World is a 2018 book by paleontologist Steve Brusatte. The book chronicles the evolution of dinosaurs, their rise as the dominant species, and ends with an account of their extinction from the Chicxulub asteroid. It also includes a discussion of the evolution of feathered dinosaurs and birds' descent from dinosaurs, and an epilogue of sorts discussing the post-dinosaur emergence of mammals. Brusatte includes anecdotes from his own dinosaur-obsessed childhood and his fieldwork and research, as well as descriptions of other historical and modern paleontologists responsible for various discoveries.
It received strongly positive reviews, praising the author's enthusiasm, vivid writing, and up-to-date research. A few reviewers criticized the focus on big-name dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus at the expense of breadth.
The author, Steve Brussatte, is a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh.[1] A review in The Times described him as "a man who ranks as one of the leading experts in his field: a palaeontologist who seems to have studied with all the greats and to have dug up fossils everywhere that matters."[2] He became interested in dinosaurs as a teenager, not a young child like many palaeontologists, so he read adult popular science books, which he described as a "gateway into science". He wanted to write an up-to-date book on "the whole evolutionary story of dinosaurs" that would fill that niche and cover new discoveries, which hadn't been written about in that format.[3]
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs was Brusatte's first book for a popular adult audience, but he had written a number of popular science articles and several children's books.[4] It was published in 2018 by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. The cover was designed by Mumtaz Mustafa and illustrated by Todd Marshal.[5]
The book begins with the evolution of proto-dinosaurs and dinosaurs' emergence from the Permian-Triassic extinction. The early dinosaurs were not very successful. They became the dominant animals at the beginning of the Jurassic period, which was marked by a mass extinction of many of their competitors. After covering this evolution, he discusses the speciation of dinosaurs in the Jurassic, with an especial focus on sauropods. The author then spends two chapters describing the evolution and characteristics of Tyrannosaurus rex and its ancestors, his "favorite dinosaur".
In the next chapter he emphasizes that dinosaurs did not go extinct, but rather continue today as birds. He discusses various discoveries of feathered dinosaurs, how the scientific consensus came to agree that they were the ancestors of modern birds, and the evolution of wings and flight.
The last chapter deals with the end of the dinosaurs, with a detailed description of the first few days after the asteroid impact that scientists now believe caused their extinction and the longer-term climate effects. He also discusses why the dinosaurs died out while other animals did not, the history of our understanding of the causes of dinosaur extinction, and competing theories. The epilogue covers the rise of mammals after the dinosaur extinction, the subject of Brusatte's next book The Rise and Reign of the Mammals. Writing for the London Review of Books, Francis Goodling comments on the epilogue that "dinosaurs frequently appear as an ambiguous proxy for contemporary human concerns ... here Brusatte is no different from his predecessors."[6]
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs was a New York Times bestseller.[7]
Reviewers generally praised Brusatte's writing, with several calling it "vivid".[8] Tom Holland at The Times and other reviewers especially singled out his ability to describe paleontological landscapes.[9] The Christian Science Monitor praised his "narrative exuberance" and "completely winning blend of technical expertise and storytelling ability".
Several other reviewers also commented on the author's command of modern research and "ability to write in plain English". Holland called it a "readable and up-to-date survey of the current state of palaeontological knowledge" which "grippingly ... demonstrates the quickening pace of research". He also calls it "the best book on the subject written for the general reader since Robert Bakker's The Dinosaur Heresies back in the 1980s." Oliver Moody at The Times likewise praised Brusatte's "steering a course between pedantry and patronizing oversimplification with flair". A review in Systematic Biology strongly praises source notes at the end of the book, in which Brusatte provides a brief summary of the primary sources he uses, calling it "an innovative attempt to directly engage readers with the scientific research".[10]
Brusatte focuses heavily on anecdotes about modern paleontologists from his own life, leading one review to call the book "part autobiography and part popular science". This split reviewers, with Steve Donoghue at the Christian Science Monitor finding the stories "interesting and amusing" and Ira Flatow writing for The New York Times saying they "made the book special",[11] while Moody writes that "there are too many humdrum anecdotes that involve Brusatte jogging to catch trains in foreign countries, or men sitting in the desert drinking beer, or men standing around in conference centres drinking spirits. He is also so nice about his colleagues that it makes you long for a juicy academic vendetta or some Lucky Jim-style campus theatrics". A review in Systematic Biology complains that the book "at times seems a review of his and his colleagues' accomplishments" but nevertheless calls it overall "captivating".
Several reviewers criticized Brusatte's focus on T. rex and other "celebrity" clades, with one reviewer complaining that they "got somewhat out-T. rexed".[12]
In a rare negative review, Verlyn Klinkenborg criticizes Brusatte's pop-science metaphors. He describes the book as "a lost world of [Brusatte's] own, where metaphors war anachronistically in defiance of what scientists understand".[13]