Diamond Exposed

I never could understand the popular enthusiasm for Jared Diamond's books. They always seemed to me to be simplistic and more than a little deceptive. He was always more a storyteller than a serious student of history. His supposedly historical accounts were little more than morality tales and in his most famous work, the ultradeterministic "Guns, Germs and Steel", Diamond tries to explain the entire course of human history without recourse to human agency. It turns out that he also makes things up and has finally been called on it. Read about it here.