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The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)
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About The Art Of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History
Product Description From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott, the compelling tale of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm’s length from any organized state society For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them—slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen. Review "James Scott has published a book making a far more ambitious argument: Zomia, he says, offers a sort of counter-history of the evolution of human civilization. . . . What Zomia presents, Scott argues . . . is nothing less than a refutation of the traditional narrative of steady civilizational progress, in which human life has improved as societies have grown larger and more complex. Instead, for many people through history, Scott argues, civilized life has been a burden and a menace."—Drake Bennett, The Boston Globe "For those who live in states, savages are those who do not. Yet since the Enlightenment, there have always been Western intellectuals who want to find a critical role for the savage to play. The general idea has been to harness the otherness of indigenous or stateless people as a means of interrogating . . . the modern state. In the past twenty years or so, this project has dropped off drastically . . . . Scott has found a creative way to revive the tradition of critical thinking about the savage—and to highlight the social goals of equality and autonomy embodied in the Zomian social order that states routinely fall short of realizing."—Joel Robbins, Bookforum "Scott’s panoramic view will no doubt enthrall many readers . . . one doesn’t have to see like a Zomian nor pretend to be an anarchist to appreciate the many insights in James Scott’s book."—Grant Evans, Times Literary Supplement "While The Art of Not Being Governed makes an important contribution to the larger field of uplands studies (and not only the study of the Southeast Asian uplands), its merits lie ultimately in the questions that it raises and the trenchant skepticism with which it will leave the careful reader."—Bradley C. Davis, New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia "Scott's books is refreshingly welcome. . . . The author argues his case in a clear, comprehensible, and erudite fashion leaving readers in little doubt as to where he stands
