You should read Why Nations Fail as a comparison. It's an incredible book. It starts off mentioning GGS with the gist being not that Diamond is wrong per-se, bu

You should read Why Nations Fail as a comparison. It's an incredible book. It starts off mentioning GGS with the gist being not that Diamond is wrong per-se, but "it's a little bit more complicated than that". The authors then proceed to put forward a thesis centering around how political institutions define economic institutions which define what opportunities the people have available to them and that massively affects outcomes. Fittingly the book is basically about how the Anna Karerina Principle played out throughout history during every political regime change. Most were simply that. Change. It was the confluence of a number of unique and necessary things all in the same place and same time that finally gave birth to a democratic society. Really incredible book. I need to get around to reading my copy of GGS. I think the geography hypothesis has some degree of validity to it, but certainly not a complete explanation.