The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

The Times Science Book of the Year. A Sunday Times Bestseller. 'Thrilling . . . the best book on the subject written for the general reader' - The Sunday Times 66 million years ago the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the earth. Today, Dr. Steve Brusatte, one of the leading scientists of a new generation of dinosaur hunters, is piecing together the complete story of how the dinosaurs ruled the earth for 150 million years. The world of the dinosaurs has fascinated on book and screen for decades - from early science fiction classics like The Lost World, to Godzilla terrorizing the streets of Tokyo, and the monsters of Jurassic Park. But what if we got it wrong? In The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, top dinosaur expert Brusatte tells the real story of how dinosaurs rose to dominate the planet. Using the fossil clues that have been gathered using state of the art technology, Brusatte follows these magnificent creatures from their beginnings in the Early Triassic period, through the Jurassic period to their final days in the Cretaceous and the legacy that they left behind. Along the way, Brusatte introduces us to modern day dinosaur hunters and gives an insight into what it's like to be a paleontologist. He reveals thrilling accounts of some of his personal discoveries, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs, monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex, and feathered raptor dinosaurs preserved in lava from China. At a time when Homo sapiens has existed for less than 200,000 years and we are already talking about planetary extinction, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a timely reminder of what humans can learn from the magnificent creatures who ruled the earth before us. 'A gripping read in the best traditions of popular science' - The Observer 'This is science at first hand, meant for grown-ups' - Henry Gee, author of A (Very) Short History of Life On Earth

Dr Steve Brusatte is a paleontologist on the faculty of the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He grew up in the Midwestern United States and 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. Steve is widely recognized as one of the leading paleontologists of his generation. He has written over one hundred peer-reviewed scientific papers during his decade of research in the field, named and described over ten new species of dinosaurs, and led groundbreaking studies on how dinosaurs rose to dominance and went extinct. One of his particular research interests is the evolutionary transition between dinosaurs and birds and he is a noted specialist on the anatomy, genealogy, and evolution of the carnivorous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is his re-evaluation of the creatures that ruled the earth for 150 million years.

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