Rob's Reviews > Dinomania: Why We Love, Fear and Are Utterly Enchanted by Dinosaurs

I enjoyed the concepts which the author tried to present here, but I'm not certain that I can agree with the full fleshing out of the theories he used in the latter stages of the book, especially concerning whether dinosaurs could be considered "human" in terms of their dominance of the world in their era. He does raise a good point about the anthropocentric views of evolution and how dinosaurs stand out like a rather sore thumb, and how we ignore/show less interest in the actual mammalian ancestors of that era, as well as the more recent megafauna like mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers.

The quick history of palaeontology was genuinely fascinating, and I enjoyed learning about the rival bonehunters in late 19th century America. Being British, I wasn't really aware of how dominant dinosaurs became in US advertising/marketing during the first half of the 20th century, so that was interesting too.

Maybe the author was a little too quick to dismiss what he calls "dino-kitsch", which is his term for the more recent upsurge in interest in dinosaurs, primarily driven by Jurassic Park (the novel and the film). The fact that a whole new generation is having their interest piqued, particularly as actual palaeontology is developing newer theories about dinosaurs, shouldn't be belittled.