I always imagined that Karl Rove had a heavily marked-up copy of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" as he manipulated politics, paying particular attention to the sections on religion. This should also be required reading for anyone staking their livelihood on a social media startup.
"Guns" is still a good read, as long as you don't stop there.
What's far less clear is that it was a simple as agriculture rose first on the Hilly Flanks. Game over.
Why the West Rules for Now is IMO correct when it basically says "Of course, the various factors Diamond discussed played a role but they're not the whole story. The book then goes on to show (based on a lot of data) how the Western Core and the Eastern Core actually switched leadership positions back and forth over time. I think it's fair to characterize his position as it was always going to be one of those two, but the West achieve its position solely because it was first.
Why didn't Babylon industrialize? Or China or Egypt or Persia or India or Ethiopia or the Inca or the Greeks or Romans or Arabs or Nubians or Zulu or Mississippians or Ottomans or or or or or.
North-West Europeans did what we did because we chose to do the things necessary and others didn't. The only purpose of environmental determinism is to muddy the waters. If Africans had invented electricity and someone used specious arguments to belittle Africans by saying their accomplishment was nothing special because industrialization was inevitable in Africa because of how much rainfall they get you and I would recognize how racially motivated that is.
Turkic peoples invented basic steam engines, so did the Greeks, why didn't they use them for anything?
Ultimately the reasons for this are going to come back to material reality, ie, your surroundings.
Jared Diamond is actually the cover quote for Sapiens looking at my copy!
It’s 17 pages, but the general idea is basically ”whenever his facts are broadly correct they are not new, and whenever he tries to strike out on his own he often gets things wrong”.
And just in case anyone boxes & dismisses this as anthropology = social science = progressive relativist criticism, Hallpike is an 83 year old Oxford type who recently spent 200 pages [1] being very angry at popular modern ideas about the realities of primitive society.
[0] - http://www.hallpike.com/A%20review%20of%20Sapiens.pdf
[1] - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42109085-ship-of-fools
If you want Sapiens but without these problems, try "Against the Grain" by James C. Scott. Covers much of the same material, but with many more citations from reputed journals and academics.
I'm considering "Against the Grain". The Audible narrator is an acquired taste (he hyper-articulates, and holds trailing vowels as if he's trying to establish his social class) but one can learn to tune this out.
I sensed an intuitive truth to the instructions on manipulating people. And I sensed that Karl Rove was following this playbook. Whether it has scientific veracity, to my dismay it worked for him.
As for "Sapiens", I love how it's translated into so many languages. There's even an Audible version in Catalan. It's so much easier to learn a language when you know what the text is about to say.