Book Review: The Complete Dinosaur 2nd Edition

This is my first book review for this book. I have a number of books, all related to paleontology and biology on my shelf, desk, and other random places that I will be reviewing in the future and when I purchase a new book I will work hard to post a review on it. My first one, appropriately enough, will be The Complete Dinosaur 2nd edition.

 This book is part of a series edited by James O. Farlow hosted by Indiana University Press called Life of the Past. Follow the above link and you will find my Christmas/birthday/anyday wish list. A few of the books that are a part this series I am not terribly interested in but I would love to have most of those books as a part of my personal library.
I purchased The Complete Dinosaur within a few months that it was released. I am very thankful that I purchased it. It is a little expensive but Amazon offers a pretty good deal.

Here is Thomas Holtz Jr. but forget that, look at that skull (the dinosaur's)!

Big, heavy, and expensive books make me want to pound my chest and make gorilla noises. This books does just that. It is big and it is heavy. It is not a travel-friendly read though. The book is 8.5"x11" and 1.9" deep with 1128 pages of in-depth writings. The book was edited by Thomas R. Holtz Jr. whom you
should recognize if you have seen any documentaries remotely related to anything dinosaur on the Discovery Channel, History Channel, or any other channel. The other editors are M. K Brett-Surman, and James O. Farlow. The art consultant is Bob Walters. Bob Walters is decent but, in my mind, Dino Art studios doesn't even compare with Gary Saab studios, which I hope to write on eventually.
The Complete Dinosaur that I have is the 2nd edition. The 1st edition was published in 1997 and I hope to purchase that one as well. The book is a collection of essays written by experts in the field, 61 experts to be exact.
The first set of essay is on the history of paleontology. It is a very interesting history. You may be surprised to learn that the early pioneers in the discipline were creationists while evolutionists were actively shunned. Now, granted, there were political reasons for that. I enjoyed the story of Asian paleontological expeditions with none other than Roy Chapman Andrews, the original Indiana Jones. I will have to write a post on him eventually.
After the group of essays concerning the history of the paleontological discipline are essays on studying dinosaurs. Pretty intriguing stuff really. They go over geology, the work that goes into excavating and finding dinosaurs, how museum exhibits are constructed, and other things like that.
After that, is a collection of essays overviewing the different dinosaur orders.
After that are essays on the paleobiology of dinosaurs and, lastly, the world of the Mesozoic. This is merely a review of what is in the book not necessarily a condoning of everything that it teaches.
Two essays that I was particularly intrigued with was Metabolic Physiology of Dinosaurs and Early Birds by John A. Ruben, Terry D. Jones, Nicholas R. Geist, William J. Hillenius, Amy E. Harwell, and Devon E. Quick. Of course the early birds got the worm... In that essay they have a very compelling argument for dinosaurs to have a more reptilian/mammalian type respiratory system instead of an avian one which could directly correlates with their physiology. I say "could" because reptiles and mammals have similar respiratory system compared with that of birds, yet physiologies of reptiles and mammals are often polar opposites I personally do not think that dinosaurs had a completely ectothermic physiology but they probably did not have a completely endothermic metabolism like a rodent or song bird. I do tend to think that they would have been more on the warm-blooded side than the cold-blooded side. I will be writing more about that soon as well.
The second essay that I thought was interesting was actually Dinosaur Extinction by J. David Archibald. You may be interested to know that many paleontologist do not think that an asteroid was the cause of dinosaur extinction. For a good perspective on that see the last chapter in Oceans of Kansas by Michael Everhart. What you have been taught in elementary school and from television documentaries does not fully represent what the scientific community actually believes about dinosaur extinction. More about that sometime in the future.
As a bit of complaint, I was not too impressed with the artwork that was chosen for the plates. Once again, many pieces were fantastic, sometimes a little incorrect in anatomical details, were mostly digital pieces, and some were kinda corny. It was funny though, because some of the artists represented had better pieces that could have been shown.
In general, it is a good book with a lot of information. There are plenty of citations that a researcher could chase down if something captures their attention. The next step up from this book, from what I have been told, is Dinosauria by David Weishampel, Peter Dodson, and Halszka Osmolska I am glad that I used the money and purchased The Complete Dinosaur and hope to use it for years to come.