“A Brief History of Time” is a standout here, as it’s dealing with really well-defined, well-studied, well-tested physics theories. (Well, except for Grand Unif

“A Brief History of Time” is a standout here, as it’s dealing with really well-defined, well-studied, well-tested physics theories. (Well, except for Grand Unification stuff.) But Diamond’s work, and other authors that are in this middle-brow reviewed-in-The New Yorker mold, deals with really complex sociology and psychology, which aren’t reducible to equations. (There’s no Lorentz transformation for colonialism.) Malcom Gladwell really comes right to mind here—lot of pop-sci stuff which gets in all the right publications and then ends up being just wrong in all the ways.