When Robert Plot came across a dinosaur bone in the late 17th century, he mistakenly reported it in his Natural History of Oxfordshire as a leg bone from a race of extinct giant humans. Choosing that not entirely auspicious moment as the beginning of paleontology, paleontologist and documentary producer Weishampel and White profile the growth of the field by presenting scientific journal articles and book excerpts that demonstrate the growing knowledge about dinosaurs from Plot's discovery to Henry Fairfield Osborn's 1906 description of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)