I've possibly made this statement before either here or elsewhere.. doesn't matter.

Jared Diamond's book Guns Germs and Steel seems to attract a little bit of hate from some podcasters and the like, particularly historians. There's much to criticize in the book but I find it to be annoying how much they seem to miss that is "useful".

Primarily in that it explains what is obvious: The domination of European Empires in the last 200-500 years, without resorting to Skull-Caliper Race-Science nonsense; idiotic arguments from Culture, or weepy moralism about how bad colonists/settlers/etc. 'noble-savage-esque' (by our modern moral standards, and the standards at the time, the colonization of the western hemisphere was a horrific series of genocidal crimes... but jesus christ at least admit that the Aztecs were also fucked up... humans are just fucked up in general )

Rather than all of that Diamond says a lot of it comes down to geography, while some can simplify this to be "up-down v. side-side"-simplification of his idea that the shape and orientation of the continents played a role, I think it at least attempts to find an answer to "why didn't the Mayans or Aztecs use Llamas?... surely if you sheared the llamas you might be able to cross panama with them in Winter?" -that isn't something completely racist or a non-answer.

My point is basically that there's something to be said for how this is at the very least a useful starting point for constructing a ""big picture"".

though perhaps I'm just experiencing too much twitter discourse.

Apologies in advance if this is stupid.