Hi Historians!
My niece is becoming very interested in studying history, and I remember fondly reading GG&S back in the day and obtaining a new way of thinking about systemic factors throughout historical events.
I would purchase GG&S for her to read but... I feel like contemporary historians may be past it in terms of advancement, and I was looking for a similar book that's perhaps more in vogue.
Any recommendations?
u/Lubyak already covered the problem with "Big History" books in general but there are some that are sort of close to the material GGS covers. They all have their own problems but generally are considered more scholarly or important in some way than GGS.
-The Creation of Inequality by Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus -- covers prehistory up through early empires, ends at the Incan empire.
-Europe and the People Without History by Eric Wolf -- considered to be one of the classics of the political economy school of anthropology, focuses on European colonization in the modern era.
-1491 by Charles Mann -- popularization of research on Native American history pre-contact without dumbing it down. There is also the sequel, 1493.
There is also the new Graeber and Wengrow book coming out next month. It might be good.
I will shy away from making any recommendations on new books, but it's worth noting that Guns, Germs, and Steel has a rather poor reputation amongst historians for a variety of reasons. We have a whole section of the FAQ describing many of the criticisms of Diamond's work, and why it's widely regarded more as a source of bad history rather than a good introduction to anything.
Big History books like Guns, Germs, and Steel are almost inherently going to be very problematic or difficult since they attempt to cover such a broad array of areas that almost no individual author is going to be able to give justice to the topics that they cover. It might be better to interrogate a more specific area that your niece is interested in, since--more often than not--there are going to be more well written and well regarded works on more narrow topic areas when compared to Diamond's efforts.
Noël Cowen's Global History is a very concise but thorough book on history on multiple continents. It's not as gripping as gg&s and 1492, but it's more solid from a history pov (as in actually used as source book I my classes).
I suggest reading that and selecting subjects of history that tickle your fancy from it and read the sources Cowen lists on those subjects.