Dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts have been a big part
of Western Culture, especially the dominant English, French and American
cultures, for centuries. This has been acknowledged by scientists, historians,
and artistic commentators, but there are relatively few overviews of it. So, it
was to my delight that Allen A. Debus finally wrote a book on this obsession
and its permutations, the 2010 work Prehistoric Monsters: The Real and Imagined
Creatures of the Past That We Love to Fear.
