- The Guardian,
- Friday October 20 2000
The ability to put complex ideas simply is much sought-after in this pop-science era. The problem is finding a specialism that hasn't already been explained to death. In his controversial debut, Buchanan makes the case for applying the laws of physics to weather reports, history and even politics. His theory is based on some very complicated scientific theories that are, in turn, based on simple observations: if you create a pile of rice, grain by grain, sooner or later it will topple. You can predict the likely frequency of the avalanches, but not when they will happen or what size each will be.
Chris Lavers in the Guardian pointed out that an author who stretched ideas across disciplines and well beyond the boundaries of knowledge was sure to receive a mixed response. On the critical side would be specialists who found flaws in the data: Lavers himself wasn't too impressed with Buchanan's approach to the death of the dinosaurs. But this didn't invalidate the thesis. "I wish there were more juicy, thought-provoking books like Buchanan's on the popular-science shelves," he concluded.
