While some of the pop culture criticism of Diamond could be assigned to so-called cancel culture or “racism,” that characterization really does not summarize much of the academic critique of Diamond.
The best critique I’ve read and certainly the most fun is the Davids Wengrow and Graeber’s big tome “Dawn of Everything.”
Part of critique is simply Diamond making some broad strokes and it’s always the nature of synthesis that they decay quickly as new research comes available.
I’ll link to their more broad editorial, but the David’s’ biggest critique of Diamond and other neo-Raussians is that much of the foundation of those assertions are based on broad and bad preconceptions about so-called pre-history from the Enlightment. Once stated more plainly, very few of us in 2023 or even 20-40 years earlier, would agree with anything stated about other cultures in the Enlightment. And yet somehow, entire world histories - Diamond’s included - never question these basic foundational assumptions. This is a mistake that is increasingly disputed by not only pre-existing 20th century anthropology, but most certainly by 21st century anthropology included LiDAR and satellite imaging.
This author addresses some of that critique but to frame it as some kind of racist critique or cancel culture is frankly absurd. I’m surprised because as a historian surely Kedrosky has read the same books and articles I have, and certainly must know how historiography works - likely better than I do! - and yet this framing is so disengenious it’s a bit surprising.
In any case I recommend Dawn of Everything. It’s not a retort to Diamond/neo-Raussian as it is a kind of “huh!” with a lot of fun framing of preexisting research - some of which Diamond himself pulls from.
An op-Ed to whet the appetite: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/opinion/graeber-wengrow-d...