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You should also read the criticisms of that book, of which there are many. It's a good read, but much of it is speculation backed up by unprovable theories and
by willmadden 3y ago
You should also read the criticisms of that book, of which there are many. It's a good read, but much of it is speculation backed up by unprovable theories and the occasional factual error.
- astrange 3y agoThen you can read the countercriticism. https://blog.daviskedrosky.com/p/jared-diamond-a-reply-to-his-critics https://blog.daviskedrosky.com/p/jared-diamond-a-reply-to-hi...
- freedomben 3y agoYes please, I would love to read the criticisms of the book. Do you have any specific recommendations? Another commenter mentioned the Wikipedia page, which I am looking at now. I definitely have criticisms of my own, such as the author being obsessed with telling the reader directly that Europeans aren't smarter (in fact he makes clear multiple times that Polynesians are genetically smarter than Europeans), and with him calling everyone and everything racist if they even consider the possibility that differences between groups of humans could have had anything to do with how their histories turned out, even directly calling any of those theories "racist." He also freely mixes his own opinion with facts, although he did usually make an attempt to include some of the counter-arguments, though they smelled a bit like strawmen. But overall the book's attempt at comprehensive, engaging overview and the focus around what seems like such a simple question ("Yali's question"), and a lot of mostly accurate stuff, made for an enjoyable read and one I would recommend.
- vidro3 3y agoAskhistorians on Reddit has a lot of posts on it