Part autobiography and part popular science, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is Steve Brusatte’s first foray into book-length science writing for an adult, non-specialist audience. However, he is an experienced popular science writer, with a sheaf of magazine articles to his credit, as well as several children’s books. Brusatte is Reader in vertebrate palaeontology at the University of Edinburgh, where his research focuses on the origin and early evolution of the dinosaurs, the anatomy and taxonomy of the ‘meat-eating’ theropods, and the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, which caused the subjects of his research to go extinct. His writing style is engaging and fluent, his use of analogy relevant and appropriate. This book will therefore be accessible to those with some knowledge of dinosaur palaeobiology, as well as those coming to the subject for the first time.
The narrative takes the reader through the origin and evolution of the dinosaurs, and their rise to dominance, before taking a break to investigate Brusatte’s favourite dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex, in more detail. Two whole chapters are given over to the tyrannosaurs before the tale is resumed, describing the origin of flight, the evolution of birds and finally the extinction of the dinosaurs. This last section, written from the perspective of a herd of T. rex that witnessed the meteorite impact, is one of the highlights of the book. Brusatte’s own numerous contributions are woven into the main story, and he describes complex palaeontological methodologies and findings concisely but entirely comprehensibly.
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