[madhadron]

Yes. He cherry picked some ideas about history to support his theory, and ignored the couple centuries of development of geographic determinism in history that went over all his ideas in detail and showed they didn't work before he was born.

I have never examined his ornithology, but I'm willing to extend him professional courtesy that it's solid, but his popular books should be categorized with Gavin Menzies.

[woodandsteel]

Could you list a few books and main criticisms? Like do the critics claim Diamond is mistaken about the need for plants and animals that can be profitably domesticated, and how few there are? Or that infections diseases played a key role in the success of Western imperialism?

[Steko]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jared+diamond+site%3Areddit.com%2F...

for example:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8nr7xd/thoug...

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6meq1k/a_det...

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_d...

[woodandsteel]

Well I skimmed over the links, and like all the other critiques of GGS I have seen, they don't really address his argument.

For one thing, he was not arguing why Europeans conquered the world, but rather why a Eurasian civilization did so. Also he was not a determinist who was arguing that it was inevitable that this happen, rather that it was possible that it could, and that a civilization from another continent couldn't, or at least it was much less likely.

And indeed, when you look at the civilizations on other continents, they had much less developed military technologies, and much lower agricultural production per capita than the advanced Eurasian ones. None of the critiques I have seen address Diamond's argument that Eurasia prevailed because it had the plants and animals needed to develop more powerful civilizations than did the other continents. I mean, do you think the Mayans could have conquered Europe, China, India and the Middle East, even though they lacked grains and beasts of burden? And what about a civilization whose territory lacked the coal and iron ore needed to produce iron and steel, could it have won militarily against those that did and were making use of them?

[Steko]

> like all the other critiques of GGS I have seen

If you've already familiar with a lot of Diamond critiques but have decided he's right all along then why say "Could you list a few books and main criticisms?". You come off as not engaging in good faith.

[woodandsteel]

I asked because it has been a number of years since I looked into criticisms of Diamond, and I thought there might be some new ones worth looking at.

And as far as my point goes that Diamond's critics don't really address his main points, you are continuing the pattern.