The Art of Not Being Governed
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Review
'A brilliant study rich with humanity and cultural insights, this book will change the way readers think about human history-and about themselves. It is one of the most fascinating and provocative works in social history and political theory I, for one, have ever read.' - Robert W. Hefner, Boston University --Robert W. Hefner
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." . . a sprawling, creatively 'disorderly' and beautifully written book. . . . [It is] dotted with memorable phrases and beautifully crafted paragraphs."--Tony Day, "South East Asia Research"--Tony Day "South East Asia Research "
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book presents a view of the nature of and relationship between "hill" and "valley" peoples to be very different from the "barbarian" vs. "civilized" take that those outside the field may have been exposed to. The book provides a convincing and evidence-based argument that there was continual cross-over between the two groups and that ethnicity was more of a social than a genetic matter.
The book shows that in general hill people were originally valley people who chose (or were driven to) the hills rather than be incorporated into valley states. It also shows the volatility of states.
The book also shows how the physical geography could expand distances (e.g., horizontal distances that include hills and mountains are much "further" than those same distances over plains), and how this meant that in some cases hill people could live quite near valley and plain people. Similarly, the book shows how the type of food grown affected people's mobility and thus how states preferred people to grow crops that tied people to particular localities and growing seasons so that they could be controlled and taxed.
Overall this is a very interesting and well written book.
The book shows that in general hill people were originally valley people who chose (or were driven to) the hills rather than be incorporated into valley states. It also shows the volatility of states.
The book also shows how the physical geography could expand distances (e.g., horizontal distances that include hills and mountains are much "further" than those same distances over plains), and how this meant that in some cases hill people could live quite near valley and plain people. Similarly, the book shows how the type of food grown affected people's mobility and thus how states preferred people to grow crops that tied people to particular localities and growing seasons so that they could be controlled and taxed.
Overall this is a very interesting and well written book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
James Scott turns geopolitics on its head by viewing it from the perspective of the loosely defined 'hill tribes' of highland South-East Asia, and by extension that of all state refuseniks. The result is filled with original insights into a head-spinning range of fields that includes state formation, language and ethnicity, the relationship between geography and history, and the uses of slash-and-burn agriculture, non-literacy and millennial prophets. The points are made vigorously and sweepingly, and then buttressed with often repetitive detail, so it may be a dry read for some and superficial for others; but the ambition of its thesis demands both vision and diligence and I found it well pitched.
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42 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Hobbes was Wrong!
22 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover
Scott's thesis in this book is simple yet profound. He argues that many "primitive" tribal peoples actually made a conscious decision to adopt a "simpler" lifestyle in order to avoid the burdens of living under organized states. For much of history, the "civilized" state collected taxes and enslaved people, but didn't do much to help people. Tribal societies, Scott argues, adopted a nomadic lifestyle, planted root crops that were more difficult to find, and unlearned literacy all in an attempt to separate themselves from a certain political way of life they found oppressive. I was extremely skeptical of Scott's argument before reading the book, but now I find that Scott's thorough job in The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) is simply too compelling to ignore. As Scott himself points out, it also undermines Hobbes; far from people moving from a state of nature to the Leviathan state, many people want to flee the state to return to nature.
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Historical Anarchy/Conceptual Anarchy and How Historical Processes Really Work
3 Jun 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The thesis is pretty much be as follows:
- There exists a zone in Southeast Asia and South Asia, for the most part at higher elevations, where people have always actively resisted incorporation in anything like a state.
- These people have generally been called primitive and been considered to be lesser on an evolutionary scale, inferior versions of "us," whether "us" means the traditional and precolonial state societies in the region, colonial powers, or postcolonial "independent" nation-states.
- But in reality these people are not and have not been primitive traces of the past; instead they have actively resisted taking part in what we have always been taught is "progress." They have chosen to flee taxes, forced labor/slavery, conscription, and authority in general.
- In fact (a) these "hill people" have always been in a symbiotic relationship with states, providing economic resources, for example, via trade, and (b) people have moved back and forth across the actually permeable boundary between these non-state social milieus and the realm of states. People have, in other words, throughout history fled states for the hills and sometimes (when perceived as advantageous) left the hills for the state.
- Sadly, this may not be as possible as it used to be, but Scott's work suggests to this reader that what the non-state realm of Zomia actually means for us is that resistance to what one might call "capture" is always possible. This doesn't necessarily have to mean not paying taxes or living in the woods, perhaps. It can also mean thinking freely, in ways that are not pre-fabricated, in ways in which we were not taught, in creative ways....
Good book.
- There exists a zone in Southeast Asia and South Asia, for the most part at higher elevations, where people have always actively resisted incorporation in anything like a state.
- These people have generally been called primitive and been considered to be lesser on an evolutionary scale, inferior versions of "us," whether "us" means the traditional and precolonial state societies in the region, colonial powers, or postcolonial "independent" nation-states.
- But in reality these people are not and have not been primitive traces of the past; instead they have actively resisted taking part in what we have always been taught is "progress." They have chosen to flee taxes, forced labor/slavery, conscription, and authority in general.
- In fact (a) these "hill people" have always been in a symbiotic relationship with states, providing economic resources, for example, via trade, and (b) people have moved back and forth across the actually permeable boundary between these non-state social milieus and the realm of states. People have, in other words, throughout history fled states for the hills and sometimes (when perceived as advantageous) left the hills for the state.
- Sadly, this may not be as possible as it used to be, but Scott's work suggests to this reader that what the non-state realm of Zomia actually means for us is that resistance to what one might call "capture" is always possible. This doesn't necessarily have to mean not paying taxes or living in the woods, perhaps. It can also mean thinking freely, in ways that are not pre-fabricated, in ways in which we were not taught, in creative ways....
Good book.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Lucid and thought-provoking
29 Aug 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is a well argued and wide-ranging exploration of the upland regions of mainland Southeast Asia, in which Scott attributes substantial agency to the peoples of these upland areas. He argues, in typically systematic fashion, that these peoples are not merely leftovers who were forced into these regions, but rather that they chose to live in these more remote areas as a strategy. While one could mount some serious challenges to this viewpoint, Scott's book is extremely important for focusing on the lowland highland divide in such systematic and historical fashion. His most important book in quite some time.
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