A book to read immediately after Guns Germs and Steel is Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu.

It's also useful to know that Diamond does not have a degree in Geography and many geographers aren't particularly on board with his ideas.

I think of him the same way I do Malcom Gladwell, a good story teller but he does this by cherrypicking anecdotes more than by a robust assessment of reality.

I've gotten to the point where I just suggest people skip Guns, Germs, and Steel entirely. Diamond is a really excellent writer, but he cherry picks his material to support a thesis and ignores all the prior art that shows that people already tried his thesis a century ago and discarded it.

Jump to 'The Power Broker' instead. Now that's an interesting read.

Nice, thanks. Do you have a go to piece of work that lays out where Diamond goes wrong? I've only ever heard it in off hand comments from people in human geography.

I've read a couple of the LBJ books which are really amazing and plan on getting to power broker eventually.

Agree on this one. Why Nations Fail is a fabulous book. I recommend reading Guns, Germs, and Steel first if you are going to read both. Highly recommend both.

> It's also useful to know that Diamond does not have a degree in Geography

He has degrees in history and anthropology and has been a professor of geography for decades.

I'm curious what you think of The Narrow Corridor, also by Acemoglu and Robinson. I finished Nations recently, not sure I should jump right to Corridor next?

haven't read it. I generally don't think it's a good strategy to read one author exhaustively though.

Why Nations Fail was incredible. One of the best things I've ever read.

I've heard there is lots of controversy surrounding Guns, Germs, and Steel. The author gets chided in some historian communities on Reddit rather frequently.