Review of The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs: The 230-Million-Year Story of Their Time on Earth by Riley Black

Like most kids, I went through a dinosaur phase, though perhaps somewhat less obsessively than some. I always have trouble picking favourites, so I can’t tell you I had a favourite dinosaur. What fascinated me, like so many I suspect, was their extinction. The idea that entire species can disappear—wow. The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs is Riley Black’s attempt to chronicle how these incredible animals evolved, how they lived for hundreds of millions of years, and then of course what happened at the end of the Cretaceous. While I was enamoured of Black’s earlier The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, this one, I am sad to say, felt like more of a slog. I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Though you would expect a history book to be chronological, Black actually chooses a more interesting method of organization. It’s loosely chronological but in a kind of parallel way, for there’s the chronology of the dinosaurs themselves and then the chronology of paleontology as a science. In some ways, the latter is more fascinating to me than the former! Black attempts to explore both of these chronologies, teaching us a little about the origins of her field while also exploring the earliest days of the dinosaurs. Where appropriate, she skips ahead or back through one or both of those timelines—but she makes sure we never get lost.

The best thing about this book is just how new it is! Most of us adults, I suspect, have an understanding of the dinosaurs mired in the blurry knowledge from our childhood, or perhaps from Jurassic Park. Although paleontologists were speculating about dinosaurs with feathers as early as the nineties (when I grew up), that didn’t filter into public consciousness for another ten years. I am aware of this development, but it isn’t a part of me. The same goes for the idea that birds are extant dinosaurs. (OK, OK, it’s more complicated than that, but I’m not the science writer here, just a humble book reviewer!)

Beyond confirming and explaining these new-yet-well-known facts, Black takes us through discoveries that are super fresh. We’re talking stuff from the 2020s, papers that have barely escaped preprint. We’ve learned a lot more about dinosaur youth, for example, by looking at what we have found in terms of eggs and fossilized babies. It was really fascinating to learn about possible social structures among different species of dinosaurs too. In this respect, The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs is worth your time, and it is why I would still recommend it despite my own disappointment.

So let’s talk about that for a moment … why did this book let me down? Honestly, I just thought it digressed a little too much into the technical and scientific for the type of popular science book I was hoping to read. This is not a book for someone who failed—or even someone who took but didn’t like—high school science. Black throws around vocabulary and ideas that require a certain level of grounding in biology. And look, I have that grounding, but sometimes I just want someone to explain things to me like I’m five, OK?

I realize “this book is too smart” is a weird criticism especially in this age of disinformation. Nevertheless, I can’t deny the overwhelming feeling I had as I sat on my deck reading it was—in my best Monty Python imitation—“Get on with it!” I’m as surprised as you are given how captivated I was by Black’s previous book, yet here we are.

Anyway, I don’t want to be overly harsh. I think a lot of people are going to like this book much more than I did, and I want that to happen. The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs brims with a bounty of information and ideas that I think are significant and fascinating. Before you dive in, however, just be prepared to work that brain a little harder.