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.

Received an Honorable Mention for the 1990 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division Award in the History, Government, and Political Science category given by the AAP
"Play fool, to catch wise."—proverb of Jamaican slaves Confrontations between the powerless and powerful are laden with deception—the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, renowned social scientist James C. Scott offers a penetrating discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage—what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, Scott examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects. Scott describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups—their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater—their use of anonymity and ambiguity. He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally, he identifies—with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign—the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power. His landmark work will revise our understanding of subordination, resistance, hegemony, folk culture, and the ideas behind revolt.
From Yale University Press, http://yalepress.yale.edu/Yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300056693

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.

James Scott taught us what's wrong with seeing like a state. Now, in his most accessible and personal book to date, the acclaimed social scientist makes the case for seeing like an anarchist. Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary cooperation without hierarchy, "Two Cheers for Anarchism" is an engaging, high-spirited, and often very funny defense of an anarchist way of seeing - one that provides a unique and powerful perspective on everything from everyday social and political interactions to mass protests and revolutions. Through a wide-ranging series of memorable anecdotes and examples, the book describes an anarchist sensibility that celebrates the local knowledge, common sense, and creativity of ordinary people. The result is a kind of handbook on constructive anarchism that challenges us to radically reconsider the value of hierarchy in public and private life, from schools and workplaces to retirement homes and government itself. Beginning with what Scott calls "the law of anarchist calisthenics," an argument for law-breaking inspired by an East German pedestrian crossing, each chapter opens with a story that captures an essential anarchist "truth." In the course of telling these stories, Scott touches on a wide variety of subjects: public disorder and riots, desertion, poaching, vernacular knowledge, assembly-line production, globalization, the petty bourgeoisie, school testing, playgrounds, and the practice of historical explanation. Far from a dogmatic manifesto, "Two Cheers for Anarchism" celebrates the anarchist confidence in the inventiveness and judgment of people who are free to exercise their creative and moral capacities.

Weapons of the Weak is an ethnography by James C. Scott that studies the effects of the Green Revolution in rural Malaysia. One of the main objectives of the study is to make an argument that the Marxian and Gramscian ideas of false consciousness and hegemony are incorrect. He develops this conclusion throughout the book, through the different scenarios and characters that come up during his time of fieldwork in the village. This publication, based on 2 years of fieldwork (1978-1980), focuses on the local class relations in a small rice farming community of 70 households in the main paddy-growing area of Kedah in Malaysia. Introduction of the Green Revolution in 1976 eliminated 2/3 of the wage-earning opportunities for smallholders and landless laborers. The main ensuing class struggle is analyzed being the ideological struggle in the village and the practice of resistance itself consisting of: foot-dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance and sabotage acts. Rich and poor are engaged in an unremitting if silent struggle to define changes in land tenure, mechanization and employment to advance their own interests, and to use values that they share to control the distribution of status, land, work and grain.

Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier's urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics -- the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? In this wide-ranging and original book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not -- and cannot -- be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans. "A broad-ranging, theoretically important, and empirically grounded treatment of the modern state and its propensity to simplify and make legible a society which by nature is complex and opaque. For anyone interested inlearning about this fundamental tension of modernity and about the destruction wrought in the twentieth century as a consequence of the dominant development ideology of the simplifying state, this is a must-read". -- Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of Hitler's Willing Executioners

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, corvee labour, 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 people 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 people 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 communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen. This title was chosen as A Best Book of 2009, Jesse Walker, managing editor, "Reason".

This original and compelling book demonstrates that the fear of food shortages explains many otherwise puzzling technical, social, and moral arrangements in peasant society. Using lower Burma and Vietnam as examples, Scott shows how the transformations of the colonial era systematically violated the peasants' "Moral Economy" and created a situation of potential rebellion.

Compulsory "ujamaa" villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier's urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics - the 20th century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? In this wide-ranging book, James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not, and cannot be, fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge. The author builds a case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires and objections of its subjects.
He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale interventions; and a prostate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.

詹姆斯·C.斯科特曾告诉我们国家的视角为什么是错的。现在，在这本简短易懂、极其个人化的新作中，他论证了无政府主义者的视角为什么重要。他用引人入胜、斗志昂扬，甚至幽默的方式，捍卫重视地方性知识、常识、个体创造力、自发性的无政府主义思维，令我们能够审视世间百态……小到学校、工厂、养老院、游乐场里的日常社会政治互动，大到民众抗议和革命。

James Scott taught us what’s wrong with seeing like a state. Now, in his most accessible and personal book to date, the acclaimed social scientist makes the case for seeing like an anarchist. Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary cooperation without hierarchy, Two Cheers for Anarchism is an engaging, high-spirited, and often very funny defense of an anarchist way of seeing—one that provides a unique and powerful perspective on everything from everyday social and political interactions to mass protests and revolutions. Through a wide-ranging series of memorable anecdotes and examples, the book describes an anarchist sensibility that celebrates the local knowledge, common sense, and creativity of ordinary people. The result is a kind of handbook on constructive anarchism that challenges us to radically reconsider the value of hierarchy in public and private life, from schools and workplaces to retirement homes and government itself.
Beginning with what Scott calls “the law of anarchist calisthenics,” an argument for law-breaking inspired by an East German pedestrian crossing, each chapter opens with a story that captures an essential anarchist truth. In the course of telling these stories, Scott touches on a wide variety of subjects: public disorder and riots, desertion, poaching, vernacular knowledge, assembly-line production, globalization, the petty bourgeoisie, school testing, playgrounds, and the practice of historical explanation.
Far from a dogmatic manifesto, Two Cheers for Anarchism celebrates the anarchist confidence in the inventiveness and judgment of people who are free to exercise their creative and moral capacities.

Confrontations between the powerless and powerful are laden with deception—the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed.
In this book, renowned social scientist James C. Scott offers a penetrating discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage—what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, Scott examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects.

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.

作者通过对马来西亚农民反抗的日常形式——偷懒、装糊涂、开小差、假装顺从、偷盗、装傻卖呆、诽谤、纵火、暗中破坏等的探究,揭示出农民与榨取他们的劳动、食物、税收、租金和利益者之间的持续不断的斗争的社会学根源。作者认为,农民利用心照不宣的理解和非正式的网络,以低姿态的反抗技术进行自卫性的消耗战,用坚定强韧的努力对抗无法抗拒的不平等,以避免公开反抗的集体风险。

人類學、政治學重量級經典、研究「國家」必讀
解釋「國家機器」會如何動起來，以及立意良善的社會計畫，為何最終又慘遭失敗？

《反穀》、《人類學家的無政府主義觀察》作者
2020年赫緒曼獎 (The Albert O. Hirschman Prize)得主——詹姆斯‧斯科特
 
 
◎ 為何菁英與執政者原本立意良好的烏托邦發展計畫，往往以災難收尾？
◎ 為何中央政府由上而下的介入，總是不能成功改造「地方」而屢遭挫敗？
◎ 受到吹捧的「高度現代主義」精神與視覺美學，是如何從根本就與人類生活扞格不入？
◎ 什麼樣的政治體制與意識形態，可能會養成「政治巨嬰」並致使人靈魂蒼白失能？
 
影響無數學者與學科領域，重新審思「國家」與「地方／人民」的關係

在這趟豐富的學思旅程中，作者斯科特不僅精準的勾勒出國家每每嘗試介入、理解並控制社會的手法，更進一步解釋為何歷史上那些意圖良善、美好且宏大的「國家計畫」，卻往往以失敗告終。
從歐洲的封建稅收制度、森林到花圃，到列寧、羅莎‧盧森堡等重要「社會主義革命家」的差異；從巴西利亞到坦尚尼亞的造村計畫，作者也談論科比意與珍‧雅各對都市計畫的歧異看法。藉由放眼全球與歷史尺度的宏觀視野，加上細膩甚至有時可以說是過於細節的田野與文獻資料，斯科特生動且偶爾嘲諷、戲謔的敘述筆法，讓這部作品不只結構分明、具有理論寓意，更是每章各自深具趣味、常藏有寫作巧思的歷史故事。＃
 
 
【在地．各領域推薦】
--------------------------------------------------
王志弘∣臺灣大學建築與城鄉研究所教授
宋世祥∣【百工裡的人類學家】創辦人、國立中山大學人文暨科科技跨領域學士學位學程助理
林開世∣臺灣大學人類學博物館館長
阿    潑∣轉角國際專欄作者    
洪伯邑∣臺灣大學地理環境資源學系副教授
許瀞文∣國立清華大學人類所副教授
彭   昉∣臺北大學社會學系助理教授
羅士傑∣臺灣大學歷史學系副教授
 

【地方．專有版本導讀】
--------------------------------------------------
如何不從「國家的視角」看待世界？  ◎林開世


 
【國際．學術社群譽揚】
--------------------------------------------------
☆ 1999年美國政治學學會年度大獎
☆ 2000年歐洲政治學學會馬太‧道根大獎（Mattei Dogan Award）
☆ 2015年美國政治學學會亞倫‧偉達夫斯基獎（Aaron Wildavsky Award）
（此獎頒發給對公共政策有長遠貢獻的書籍）
☆  2015年美國政治學學會班傑明‧立品寇特獎（Benjamin E. Lippincott Award）
（此獎兩年頒發一次，頒發給出版十五年後對政治學界仍具深遠影響力的著作）


 
★ 書中作者解釋現代治國方略的基本原則：打造精簡化與可辨識性的社會工程。
★ 國家主導的社會工程計畫中，導致大規模與全面性災難的四大必要條件：

一、對於控管自然和社會的行政秩序
儘管這是當代治國方略中不起眼的工具，卻也是雙面刃——對於維護並執行我們的福利與自由至關重要，但也能成為當代專制君主制度所用的設計。

二、高度現代主義意識形態
透過秩序、效率、理性等方式支持科學與工業，並排除歷史、文化、與自然過程。大多數手握權力的國家官員和首腦以及秩序的設計者都持這類觀點，他們熱衷於某些類型的計畫和社會組織形式，而這也與他們的利益也有密切的關聯。
 
＊本書強調，前兩項過程本身並不致命，甚至有可能促進改革；但一旦與下列三、四這兩項元素結合，就會產生無法挽回的悲劇＊


三、充滿攻擊性的集權政權
有意願、也有能力使用強制權力，並以將社會改造成高度現代主義為目標，這樣的極權政權將使高度現代主義意識型態的設計成為現實。

四、被動的市民社會
這樣的社會缺少抵制這些國家社會工程計畫的能力。
 

＊這本書的目的並非反抗或是指責個別的社會計畫或高度現代主義的意識型態，
而是要指出這兩者結合所產生的「帝國主義」，是如何侵略與忽視在地知識與習俗。
這項課題值得所有關注「國家機器」如何運作、或是「社區如何動不起來」的人，
從「國家的視野」再度審視與思考。＊

“Splendid . . . Combines the readability of Akenfield or Pig Earth with an accessible and illuminating theoretical commentary.”—A.F. Robertson, Times Higher Education Supplement
“Weapons of the Weak is a brilliant book, combining a sure feel for the subjective side of struggle with a deft handling of economic and political trends.”—John R. Bowen, Journal of Peasant Studies
“No one who wants to understand peasant society, in or out of Southeast Asia, or theories of change, should fail to read [this book].”—Daniel S. Lev, Journal of Asian Studies
This sensitive picture of the constant and circumspect struggle waged by peasants materially and ideologically against their oppressors shows that techniques of evasion and resistance may represent the most significant and effective means of class struggle in the long run.

"A splendid study, surely one of the most important that has appeared on the whole matter of power and resistance."—Natalie Zemon Davis
Confrontations between the powerless and powerful are laden with deception—the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed.
In this book, renowned social scientist James C. Scott offers a penetrating discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage—what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, Scott examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects.

Rivers, on a long view, are alive. They are born; they change and shift their channels; they forge new routes to the sea; they move both gradually and violently; they can teem (usually) with life; they may die a quasi-natural death; they are frequently maimed and even murdered.
It is the annual flood-pulse—the brief time when the river occupies the floodplain—that gives a river its vitality, but it is human engineering that kills it, suppressing the flood-pulse with dams, irrigation, siltation, dikes and levees. In demonstrating these threats to the riverine world, award-winning author James C. Scott examines the life history of a particular river, the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) of Burma, the heartland and superhighway of Burman culture.
Scott opens our understanding of rivers to encompass their entirety—tributaries, wetlands, floodplains, backwaters, eddies, periodic marshlands, and the assemblage of life forms dependent on rivers for their existence and well-being. For anyone interested in the Anthropocene and the Great Acceleration, rivers offer a striking example of the consequences of human intervention in trying to control and domesticate a natural process, the complexity and variability of which we barely understand.