How keenly condescending of you. One Dimensional Man is a Cold War polemic against both sides of the Berlin Wall. More than that, it's a necessarily myopic interpretation of the facts on the ground for half of its subject matter, having been written less than 20 years after the Kennan Long Telegram. Guns, Germs and Steel is a post-Cold War rumination on the impacts of geography, timing and biology as it relates to anthropology. "It's generally seen as an interesting essay" is academic-speak for "it's good enough for the proles, but smart people like myself generally don't bother to discredit it because people in-the-know already know better." To say that "one weaves many ideas" while the other "explains one idea" is perspective, and flawed perspective at that. More than that, you initially started out trying to say that, somehow, a book about one idea (presuming this is one) "really can't provide much of an understanding of anything" and that this was somehow the fault of the publishing industry. I've seen nothing that defends either point, just an attempt to discredit my arguments through condescension. Which I don't deserve, and I'd hoped you'd be above. And now, thoroughly embarrassed by your scathing critique, I retire, cowed, and promise to never open my mouth again, massa.