Against the grain : a deep history of the earliest states

Resource Information

The work Against the grain : a deep history of the earliest states represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Manchester City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Against the grain : a deep history of the earliest states

Title remainder

a deep history of the earliest states

Statement of responsibility

James C. Scott

Creator

• Scott, James C

Subject

• Agriculture -- Social aspects | History
• Agriculture and state -- History
• Agriculture -- Origin
• History

Genre

• History

Language

eng

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

Member of

• Yale agrarian studies

Cataloging source

ERASA

Dewey number

900

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps

Index

index present

LC call number

GN799.A4

LC item number

S285 2017

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Yale agrarian studies