For generations raised on dinosaur toys, “Jurassic Park” films and characters like Barney, it’s hard to imagine a world where dinos and their fossils didn’t exist — or, more accurately, weren’t discovered yet.

That world is exactly where Edward Dolnick takes readers in “Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party: How An Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World.”

Dolnick transports readers to the early 1800s as discoveries of dinosaur fossils transformed science and the world’s understanding of prehistoric life.

With a brisk writing style, Dolnick offers an at-times dizzying tour of the discoveries that blindsided the world and the key players in those finds.

They include fascinating figures such as Mary Anning, the 12-year-old who discovered the fossilized skeleton of an ichthyosaur, a prehistoric aquatic reptile. Years later, she discovered the fossilized skeleton of another prehistoric sea creature, the plesiosaur. Dolnick describes how eagerly museums displayed the fossils Anning found, but left her name unmentioned for years.

He also explores the complicated legacy of Richard Owen, the scientist who coined the term “dinosaur” and was the father of the Natural History Museum in London. But he also had a penchant for making enemies with other scientists.

With these profiles and others, Dolnick provides a colorful narrative of a world making sense of discoveries that would shatter notions of where humans stood in history and life overall. — Andrew DeMillo, Associated Press

Some might suggest that a doorstopper about “the influence of the horse on human history” couldn’t possibly be interesting.

Neigh, say I. Neigh.

In fact, Timothy C. Winegard’s “The Horse” is fascinating, offering a fresh perspective on how crucial horses were in human development. And it almost didn’t happen.

Abrupt climate changes eons ago, at the end of the Ice Age, drove horses to the edge of extinction. The remnants of an animal once found through much of the world were then largely confined to an area that runs roughly from eastern Europe to Central Asia — where they were hunted for food.

Still, Equus caballus might have gone the way of its brethren had it not been domesticated like cattle. Small corrals designed for milking mares have been uncovered. When someone — perhaps on a dare — decided to jump on the back of one of the more docile horses, it started “a revolution” that changed the world.

Riding horses helped farmers herd more sheep and goats and hunters cover more ground. When horses replaced oxen, their quicker gait allowed more land to be plowed, increased yields and changed subsistence farmers to commodity exporters.

Inevitably, horses became instruments of war, first pulling archers ensconced in chariots and then as mounts. The earliest- known true cavalry formation belonged to the Assyrian king Tukulti- Ninurta II (ruled 890-884 BCE).

“The Horse” is extensively researched. Winegard, an associate professor of history at Colorado Mesa University, seems to quote something from everything he has ever read. Sometimes, I wondered if the citations were there to make a point or show off.

So, yes, my eyes glazed over in some places. Fortunately, they were often followed by the kind of trivia that can make me look brilliant at my next cocktail party.

For example, I discovered horseback riding led to the origin and widespread adoption of pants, since traditional robes, skirts, togas and kilts proved less than ideal.

Winegard’s “The Horse” is interesting, charming and entertaining. But I know: I can lead you to a bookstore, but I can’t make you read. — Curt Schleier, Minneapolis Star Tribune