Against the Grain
An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available that contradicts the standard narrative for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains, and governed by precursors of today s states Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative The first agrarian states, says James C Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor He also discusses the barbarians who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples. Best Read Books Against the Grain by James C. Scott – kino-fada.fr Curious study about the long process of the development of agriculture and state building, through the process of manipulating the environment, or becoming dependent on agriculture I d become familiar with Scott s work through his novel and innovative studies of Southeast Asia, his studies on peasants and peasant rebellion, and then his fascinating descriptive works about how state power attempts to measure and control the natural environment I have, and continue to appreciate, how he refuses Curious st...This outstanding book, by the anarchist tending academic James C Scott, might be but isn t subtitled Barbarians Are Happier, Fatter and Better Looking The author does not believe the myth of the noble savage but he thinks the savage is, on average, a lot better off than the peasant Scott s project is to remold our view of the early days of civilization, erasing the sharp lines usually drawn to separate the first states from the social groups which preceded them, and dismissing the judgmen This outstanding book, by the anarchist tending academic James C Scott, might be but isn t subtitled Barbarians Are Happier, Fatter and Better Looking The author does not believe the myth of the noble savage but he thinks the savage is, on ...Can t stress enough how important it is for progressives leftists to engage with James C Scott s work He s donethan probably anyone to shift my understanding of how states operate and their effects on their subjects, on ecosystems, and on nonstate peoples the three of his books I ve read have all had a pretty significant impact on how I look at the world, which is not something I can say of many writers His latest, Against the Grain, synthesizes a range of recent research into a new nar Can t stress enough how important it is for progressives leftists to engage with James C Scott s work He s donethan probably anyone to shift my understanding of how states operate and their effects on their subjects, on ecosystems, and on nonstate peoples the three of his books I ve read have all had a pretty significant impact on how I look at the world, which is not something I can say of ...James C Scott teaches political science and anthropology at Yale He s a smooth writer and a deep thinker A while back, he decided to update two lectures on agrarian societies that he had been giving for 20 years He began studying recent research and gasp realized that significant portions of traditional textbook history had the strong odor of moldy cultural myths So, a quick update project turned into five years, and resulted in a manuscript that I found to be remarkably stimulating, f James C Scott teaches political science and anthropology at Yale He s a smooth writer and a deep thinker A while back, he decided to update two lectures on agrarian societies that he had been giving for 20 years He began studying recent research and gasp realized that significant portions of traditional textbook history had the strong odor of moldy cultural myths So, a quick update project turned into five years, and resulted in a manuscript that I found to be remarkably stimulating, from cover to cover Against the Grain A Deep History of the Earliest States.While the human saga is several million years old, and Homo sapiens appeared on the stage maybe 200,000 years ago, the origin m...Too shortInteresting counterpoint to the ascent of man kind of story we tell about ourselves when we think about history The major point Scott is arguing is The shift from hunting and foraging to agriculture a shift that was slow, halting, reversible, and sometimes incomplete carried at least as many costs as benefits Thus while the planting of crops has seemed, in the standard narrative, a crucial step toward a utopian present, it cannot have looked that way to those who first experience Too shortInteresting counterpoint to the ascent of man kind of story we tell about ourselves when we think about history The major point Scott is arguing is The shift from hunting and foraging to agriculture a shift that was slow, halting,...Historians of the ancient world have been telling us for centuries that from about 5,000 to 10,000 years ago larger and larger human communities formed in places like the Fertile Crescent, South China, the Indus River Valley of today s western India and Pakistan, and Central America To secure enough food once their population had grown to a level unsustainable by hunting and gathering, those communities turned to agriculture Food surpluses, seized by local rulers, enabled the establishment of Historians of the ancient world have been telling us for centuries that from about 5,000 t...Against the Grain is a popular science summary of the now substantial case that agriculture was not the products of innovation but rather ecological circumstance, that the state was not the beginning of the end of deprivation, savagery, and oppression, but the start of the worst examples in human history It focuses entirely with reference to some other systems for comparison on the first beginning of civilization, in Mesopotamia While the general ideas here are very familiar to me, one of th Against the Grain is a popular science summary of the now substantial case that agriculture was not the products of innovation but rather ecological circumstance, that the state was not the beginning of the end of deprivation, savagery, and oppression, but the start of the worst examples in human history It focuses entirely with reference to some other systems for comparison on the first beginning of civilization, in Mesopotamia While the general ideas here are very familiar to me, one of the big novelties was the depth of research on the transitional period in Mesopotamia, which now gives a complete enough picture that we can ...This book takes a long look very long, mainly from 12.000 BCE to 1600 CE at an area that begins in the alluvial basin of modern day Iraq and broadens out to include the Nile valley, Southeast Asia, the Yellow River valley and modern day Central America Scott examines the effect of grain farming wheat, corn, barley and millet on the inhabitants of those areas and finds that ...Yet another perspective changing book I ll addwhen I have time.Update The book, as the title suggests, primarily deals with the history of the earliest states Mainly their fragility, their unlikely yet eventual success and about domesticationon that below.As anyone who s read sapiens can acknowledge, the mainstream narrative goes something like this Humans and their ancestors lived in bands of egalitarian hunter gatherer bands for hundreds of thousands of years and then the ag Yet another perspective changing book I ll addwhen I have time.Update The book, as the title suggests, primarily deals with the history of the earliest states Mainly their fragility, their unlikely yet eventual success and about domesticationon that below.As anyone who s read sapiens can acknowledge, the mainstream narrative goes something like this Humans and their ancestors lived in bands of egalitarian hunter gatherer bands for hundreds of thou...This is a controversial, if highly erudite, book It owes its title to a hymn sung in ancient Ur ahead of the construction of a major temple, when the ordinary life of slaves and enslaved debtors was temporarily suspended in favor of a brief egalitarian moment pp 162 164 The main thesis of the book is that civilization as we know and celebrate it is a prison, of sorts.The topic is rather fashionable Everybody who s read the 2011 blockbuster Sapiens can repeat the cute little argument abou This is a controversial, if highly erudite, book It owes its title to a hymn sung in ancient Ur ahead of the construction of a major temple, when the ordinary life of slaves and enslaved debtors was temporarily suspended in favor of a brief egalitarian moment pp 162 164 The main thesis of the book is that civilization as we know and celebrate it is a prison, of sorts.The topic is rather fashionable Everybody who s read ...
- English
- 27 November 2018 James C. Scott
- Hardcover
- 336 pages
- 0300182910
- James C. Scott
- Against the Grain