After Robert D. Kaplan referenced Homer-Dixon's work in the 1994 "The Atlantic Monthly" article, "The Coming Anarchy", Homer-Dixon was offered a book deal. He spent the next half decade preparing until it was finally published in 2000 in North America and the United Kingdom. While it spent three weeks at #1 on a Canadian best-seller list, it did not sell many copies in the United States. Critics were pleased with Homer-Dixon's scholarship, straightforward presentation, and the book's breadth but some found the writing to have a self-indulgent quality. Homer-Dixon was awarded the Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction in 2001 and the book went on to be translated into French and Spanish.