The meat-eating dinosaurs, or Theropoda, include some of the fiercest predators that ever lived. Some of the group's members survive to this day—as birds. The theropod/bird connection has been explored in several recent works, but this book presents 17 papers on a variety of other topics. It is organized into three parts. Part I explores morphological details that are important for understanding theropod systematics. Part II focuses on specific regions of theropod anatomy and biomechanics. Part III examines various lines of evidence that reveal something about theropods as living creatures.

The contributors are Ronan Allain, Rinchen Barsbold, Kenneth Carpenter, Karen Cloward, Rodolfo A. Coria, Philip J. Currie, Peter M. Galton, Robert Gay, Donald M. Henderson, Dong Huang, James I. Kirkland, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, Eva B. Koppelhus, Peter Larson, Junchang Lü, Lorrie A. McWhinney, Clifford Miles, Ralph E. Molnar, N. Murphy, John H. Ostrom, Gregory S. Paul, Licheng Qiu,J. Keith Rigby, Jr., Bruce Rothschild, Christopher B. Ruff, Leonardo Salgado, Frank Sanders, Julia T. Sankey, Judith A. Schiebout, David K. Smith, Barbara R. Standhardt, Kathy Stokosa, Darren H. Tanke, François Therrien, David Trexler, Kelly Wicks, Douglas G. Wolfe, and Lowell Wood.