{"id":3117,"date":"2021-08-29T23:52:34","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T23:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=3117"},"modified":"2024-02-08T08:37:42","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T08:37:42","slug":"book-review-against-the-grain-james-c-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=3117","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REViEW: Against The Grain, James C Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A deep history of the earliest states<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As the title of this interesting book rather cleverly suggests, this book runs counter to some established narratives. The title can also be read, on a slightly deeper level, as a lament in relation to how grain has helped domesticate or even enslave humanity, under the state model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t go into the detail some reviewers do elsewhere in synopsising the books contents. Suffice it to say Scott challenges the \u2018ascent of civilisation\u2019 tale – which he calls a \u2018Just So story\u2019 – that has states as the inevitable and more or less immediate next step of sedentism. The winners – the court elites of the states – have written our histories, says Scott, and have consistently denigrated the \u2018barbarians\u2019, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book ends very<\/em> abruptly, with the brief and \u2018melancholy\u2019 admission that \u2018the barbarians willingly dug their own grave\u2019. I\u2019m still digesting the masses of stuff the book conveys or argues. So I still don\u2019t quite know what I make of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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James C Scott (source Yale books website)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the plus side, Scott is synthesising much broad and disparate information, and attempting to draw conclusions, in areas not strictly his own. I like this polymath style breadth of scope and ambition. On the negative side, his language is occasionally wilfully florid or obscure (and there\u2019s no glossary, so a dictionary is useful), and he can and does repeat himself quite a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of all, however, he\u2019s playing Devil\u2019s advocate, by suggesting we\u2019ve been sold a pack of lies; state history has been spinning us a tale of its own inevitability and innate supremacy. I don\u2019t know if this – the \u2018facts\u2019 as he sees them, or even exactly what motivates his stance – is good or bad?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I certainly found the book educational, and very thought-provoking. So I would recommend it. I\u2019ve even gone so far as buying another of his books, also about states and statecraft (Seeing Like A State<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PS – If you want a review that does<\/em> give you a synopsis of this book\u2019s contents, this is a good one<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A deep history of the earliest states As the title of this interesting book rather cleverly suggests, this book runs counter to some established narratives. The title can also be read, on a slightly deeper level, as a lament in relation to how grain has helped domesticate or even enslave humanity, under the state model. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “BOOK REViEW: Against The Grain, James C Scott”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-Oh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3117"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11407,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions\/11407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}