Book Review – Magicians Of The Gods

by Graham Hancock (Coronet) ISBN: 9781444779684

Hancock, famous for his theories about the ancient lost civilisations in Fingerprints of the Gods, has written a sequel.

He has travelled extensively, from Turkey to Egypt, Indonesia and Peru to find proof that 12,800 years ago, in the Younger Dryas period, the impact of a comet made the ice cap over North America melt. Then, 800 years later, another series of impacts generated so much heat that it destabilised the Earth’s crust again and caused major flooding. He refers to Plato’s mention of the catastrophic devastation of Atlantis, and points out evidence that an ancient culture was destroyed by these Ice Age events.

His style is easy to read and entertaining. He has done extensive research and his scientific accounts are fascinating and plausible. But when he dwells on his hypothesis of the survivors, emissaries of a high civilisation sent around the world to spread their knowledge, he lost me a bit. He calls them the Magicians of the Gods, and when he explains in his last chapter their warning to us, he makes too many assumptions to make it believable.