author : Kristi Curry Rogers

This is the course guidebook that accompanies the 24 lecture “Great Course” of the same name. It is essentially an abbreviated transcript of each lecture, some related reading, and some “questions to consider”. (I watched the lectures, which is what I am reviewing here, and am using the book simply as an aide-memoire.)

Our knowledge of dinosaurs and the time during which they lived has increased enormously over the last few decades, due to the discovery of ever more fossils, and the development over ever more sensitive and sophisticated analyses. Rogers surveys all this new knowledge, painting the rich and varied dinosaur ecosystem, covering fossilisation processes, physiology, diet, birth and growth, disease, skin patterning and feathers, cold climate dinosaurs, the warm-blooded debate, other contemporary species, the mass extinction event, and the dinosaurs that survive to today: the birds. There is a lot of technical detail, but all introduced in an accessible way. I feel much more up to date in my dino-knowledge.