Against the grain : a deep history of the earliest states / James C. Scott.
Scott, James C., author.
2017
GN799.A4 .S285 2017
Available Online

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Title Against the grain : a deep history of the earliest states / James C. Scott.
Author Scott, James C., author.
ISBN 9780300182910
9780300231687 (e-book)
Published New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press, 2017.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (335 pages) : illustrations, maps.
Call Number GN799.A4 .S285 2017
Dewey Decimal Classification 900
Summary An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative. 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.
Note An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative. 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.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-300) and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Series Yale agrarian studies.
Available in Other Form Against the grain : a deep history of the earliest states.
Linked Resources Online Access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
A narrative in tatters : what I didn't know
The domestication of fire, plants, animals, and ... us
Landscaping the world : the domus complex
Zoonoses : a perfect epidemiological storm
Agro-ecology of the early state
Population control : bondage and war
Fragility of the early state : collapse as disassembly
The golden age of the barbarians.

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