I freely admit to being a paleo-nerd. 'Cause you know, dinosaurs are just awesome fun. And if you've haven't paid attention, there have been some positively amazing developments in paleontological research over the last 10-15 years, such as feathered dinosaurs and some spectacular fossil finds. This book does pretty well at providing an up-to-date yet visually entertaining encyclopedic account of dinosaur knowledge that reflects these recent developments. Dinosaurs, however, are just one aspect of this work. There are also prehistoric mammals, flora, marine life, and pre-dinosaurs (e.g., dimetrodon or postosuchus).

The book is easy to browse. Each animal and plant receives it's own entry in chapters that are ordered chronologically by geological period, with each chapter further organized into sections for plant, invertebrate, and vertebrate life. Each chapter has a preamble containing the period's timeline, global map, and description of climate and geology. There's also two small chapters dedicated to geological and paleontological concepts and human origins.

This book's content is fairly recent, although not quite enough to include some very new discoveries such as dracorex or miragaia. Still, there are a few relatively fresh faces such as cryolophosaurus and aucasaurus. The fact of the matter is that discoveries and theories are constantly being brought to light, so any book on the subject is unlikely to cover the most recent paleontological finds. The descriptive text for entries is typically 1-2 short paragraphs, with some entries receiving a bit more attention. These are typically well-written, terse descriptions of the organism's probable lifestyle, along with outstanding fossil characteristics and findings. In terms of accuracy, it's nice to see that the author and consultant list for this book boasts more than a few lecturers and professors.

There are very nice color reconstructive illustrations and/or fossil photos for each entry. The renderings generally reflect current understanding of dinosaur physiology, such as tails being held horizontally and feathers depicted on critters such as velociraptors and troodons. Somewhat more speculatively, many dinosaurs are ornately colored and patterned, following recent trends in dinosaur depiction. One of the features that I enjoy is the little graphic comparing the size of the animal to a human. It's always fun to visually size humans up against these amazing creatures.

To sum, it's a solid encyclopedic work for enthusiasts of all ages, with entertaining visuals and text describing recent trains of thought on prehistoric life. In regard to this genre, it's actually pretty expansive in the range of flora and fauna covered. No, it isn't an in-depth scholarly text, but neither is it a simplistic time-passer.What it does end up being is fun to look at and pretty darn accurate to boot, and for most of us that fits the bill for a great book about dinosaurs. Er, I mean great book about prehistoric life…

Just starting...but this book is beautiful.

Surely one of the best books produced by high-quality publisher Dorling Kindersley, this history of life on Earth covers the fossil record from earliest times to the present day. Each geological period is given an overview, stunning photographs of the fossils for each phylum that was around at the time, and reconstructions of what the landscape might have looked like. Windows on a lost world indeed – some of those scenes look decidedly alien!

There's a lot of information, but the layout is never too 'busy' or confusing – and, very importantly, dinosaurs are given full weight, with a completele list of non-avian genera.

I have to admit that this is a weighty volume... but it's a truly beautiful book, and one which I will be buying as soon as I've saved the money!( ( )

A (mostly) gloriously illustrated guide to prehistoric life, with a cast of contributors ranging from Darren Naish (the author of Tetrapod Zoology, the web's best biology blog) to Jennifer Clack (early tetrapod expert). Despite the book's impressive heft, coverage is necessarily sketchy, but to the editors' credit it's less loopsided than in many similar popular works: Prehistoric makes a decent job at not letting palaeontological stars, such as the dinosaurs, completely crowd out less famous contemporaries, such as plants and fishes, which often are near enough forgotten in popular overviews after their Palaeozoic beginnings.

Each geological period from the Cambrian (about half a billion years ago) gets a little introduction about geography and climate. These are good orientation material but I find myself wishing they were more thorough. The heart of the book, the short articles about hundreds of extinct life-forms, is long on detail and pretty pictures (with some exceptions - Archaeopteryx deserves much better than it gets here), but fairly short on putting the organisms in an evolutionary context. The book would probably better be sampled a few entries here and there rather than read cover-to-cover as I did - the parade of disjointed facts eventually starts to blur together.