Dinosaurs: New Visions Of A Lost World, by Michael J. Benton

This book’s existence appears to be centered on its appeal in bringing odd Chinese dinosaur fossils to a Western dino-loving audience. If my feelings about China’s government are largely extremely negative and my confidence in certain aspects of this book’s approach less than strong, this is by no means a bad book even if it is not in any way an essential book. The main approach of the author, which is not to his credit, is to paint this book as a revisionist history concerning dinosaurs as a whole, and the author goes hog wild in seeking to promote the idea that most dinosaurs were covered in feathers, although it must be admitted that the author plays rather fast and loose with definitions and seeks to include “proto-feathers” as being key in understanding the supposed evolution of feathers, and also making the claim that the development of feathers was a from the trees down phenomenon where feathers were useful for gliding and other goals before serving as the basis for powered flight for dinosaurs as well as contemporary birds. As a result of the author’s occasional bungles, this book is far less coherent than it ought to be, serving as a rather disconnected look at various dinosaurs (and other long extinct creature) rather than a work that is organized thematically or chronologically or anything like that.

That is not to say that this is a bad book. It is a book that looks at ancient creatures and has at least some interesting things to say about them. That is enough to make the book at least modestly enjoyable. Yet at the same time it is easy to wonder that the book could have been so much better, especially had the book not seemed to be propaganda for the author’s views about dinosaurs and China. If the book had been chronologically organized, a bit more humble in its conclusions about feathers and the author’s view of their evolution (which is almost certainly incorrect) and sought to convey more enthusiasm and less effort in seeking to change opinions to support what the author thinks, this could have been a great book. That said, it is hard to imagine, especially in this day and age, someone wanting to write a book that captures a love of knowledge and truth without having a strong desire to engage in indoctrination or agendas of some kind or another. The sort of books that I most want to read about dinosaurs, and so much else, are not the sort of books that are easy to find because someone would have to write them.

In terms of its contents, this book is a bit more than 200 pages long and it is divided into fifteen unnumbered chapters about various Mezozoic creatures, mostly dinosaurs or dinosaur-adjacent but not enough so to make this book entirely accurately titled. After a short introduction, the author begins with Sinosauropteryx, a feathered therapod claimed to have revolutionized our understanding of feathered dinosaurs. This is followed by Anchiornis, a supposed evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs. After that comes Caudipteryx, a feathered but flightless early Cretaceous therapod. Microraptor, another early Cretaceous therapod, terms up being a gliding sort of dinosaur. A fairly familiar dinosaur, Archaeopteryx, serves as a late Jurassic therapod that has often (falsely) been claimed to be the first bird. Edmontosaurus, a fairly common North American late Cretaceous hadrosaurid, is the subject of the next chapter. Eomaia, a small furry early Cretaceous mammal, then makes an appearance. Saltasaurus, a late Cretaceous sauropod, provides some evidence of armor-plated skin. Psittacosaurus takes up a chapter, as an extremely common animal so common in the fossil reccord that one can see it at all stages of life. Kulindadromeus provides the author with what he considers to be protofeathers as well as scales for skin covering, which makes it of interest to the author. The author has the chance to talk about countershading by looking at the early Jurassic ichthyosaur Stenopterygius. This is followed by a red armor-plated early Cretaceous ankylosaur called Borealopelta. The author then considers the bat-like Anurognathus, a middle-to-late Jurassic pterosaur with a short tail, before looking at the big-but-light-headed Tupandactylus, an early Cretaceous pterodactyloid with a head crest that must be seen to be belived, and perhaps not even then. After that the author finishes with suggestions for further reading, an index, and illustration credits.