I am a academically trained historian with a special interest in the cultural and social history of the Medieval and early modern era and I am firmly grounded in the theoretical approach of authors like Bloch, Duby, Brunner, Peter Burke etc. But since I am working in a bookstore right now I am in a lot of contacts with the popular books and as a historian I was of course drawned towards the works of Yuval Noah Harari and Jared Diamond, which seemed to approach the history from quite a different angle than your typical academic historians. I am of course very much aware by the use of geography by Braudel for example, but both Harari and Diamond go higher in their use of natural sciencies than probably all of the other academic historians.

I have therefore read Sapiens by Harari and Collapse by Jared Diamond and I definitely like their originality in their approach, specially by paying a Great deal of attention to the biology and the environment, which are definitely both many Times dismissed in the traditional historiography, where topics which came more to prominence are structures vs individuals vs mentalities for example, which are of course very, very important as historiography is of course mostly concerned with humans and their activity. I have also liked the fact that Diamond threat the native Americans pretty much objectively and avoid the trap mentioned by Žižek, when well meaning people idealize native people so much that they robb them of their essential humanity.

However, I do agree with many of their critiques. About geographical determinism, obsession with biology, perhaps even a scientism if I should use that term and the great avoidance of the use of political theory, philosophy and sociology for example.

I want to ask the students and academic historians, how is your view on this two author and how are views of your academic staff. I must say that in my experience they werent even mentioned during my studies.