Guha's "Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India" takes the disturbance of the nexus between the elite and the subaltern as its focus. Employing instances of resistance from across India over the period between 1783 and 1900 - defined by a dearth of information preceding the former date and the subsumption of rebel consciousness by nationalist and socialist politics by the latter - Guha seeks to tease out the underlying structure of consciousness and action in 'peasant' rebellion in its 'pure' form (pp. 13 and 334 et passim). One hundred and ten rebellions are examined under the analytic rubric of the six categories that dictate the monograph's organization: the negatively defined consciousness of the peasantry; the spectrum between crime and rebellion; the mechanics and meanings of action in the latter; the creation of solidarity; the transmission of rebelliousness; and finally, the territorial limits thereto.

This framework is unlike that employed by other contemporary social historians on the count of its attention to a holistic context of power relations (as opposed to a lopsided, exclusive focus on the subaltern). However, it also blurs the vertical stratification within the subaltern classes, oscillating between treating 'the peasant' as an undifferentiated social entity and as a conglomerate body of distinct groups.

"Peasant Insurgency" critically engages Eric Hobsbawm's category of the 'pre-' or 'sub-political' spontaneous peasant rebellion in arguing that the evidence from colonial India points to the expression of a conscious collective will in the organized disruption of power relations between the subaltern and the triumvirate elite of sarkar, sahukar, and zamindar (colonial government, moneylender, and landlord respectively) (pp. 5-11, 333-34 et passim). Guha is, however, careful to urge caution against overestimating the 'rather hesitant, inchoate and disjointed' political consciousness of the peasantry which fell 'far short of conceptualizing the structure of authority' that shaped their conditions of existence (p. 24).

Other than decentering 'the spurious primacy of the elite' and restoring the agency of the subaltern in historical progression without eliding the former from its purview, "Peasant Insurgency" also strikes a neat balance between the 'material and spiritual' expressions of power. First, the synchronic snapshots of Indian society it presents show elite power as being expressed and derived in material difference - dress, housing, means of transportation, ownership of capital etc. - as much as it was predicated on cultural difference and encoded in consciousness - language, legend, scriptural sanction, monopoly over writing, regulation of bodily movement etc. - and this was *before* Foucault became fashionable. Second, when subaltern resistance systematically engaged this network of symbolic and material sites of power by inverting, desecrating, and destroying them (pp. 18 and 28-76), the same structural limitations to subaltern autonomy were illuminated in diachronic sequences. On the other hand, Guha also unearthed the autonomously articulated meanings with which peasant action was saturated. For instance, the modalities of the insurrection and the hunt or fishing expedition were juxtaposed to reveal the 'idiom' of 'corporate labor' common to both (pp. 126-30). Hence, it is noted that power is problematized in an amply revealing number of complex permutations in the earliest Subalternist historiography, the harbinger of which is "Peasant Insurgency."

Of course, "Peasant Insurgency"'s genius does have its limitations. First, the binary model of power relations it sets up conflating sublatern classes into one neat camp and the triumvirate of sarkar, sahukar, and zamindar in the other, simplifies the web of power relations existing therebetween to a significant degree. Second, though it self-consciously wrestles with the near-exclusive use of elite sources throughout, its straightforward reading of pseudo-canonical religious texts of Brahmanical Hinduism to tap the religious consciousness of the subaltern classes is unpersuasive. The argument that the semiotics of power embodied in the "Laws of Manu", for instance, 'congealed into naïve tradition' 'through centuries of recursive practice,' were subsequently formalized by the literati (p. 37), and were hence representative of subaltern consciousness is belied by the fact that it was colonialism that canonized such texts as "Hindu law." Asserting that they were pervasive in their influence, or that they coalesced upward, or even contradicting this position by claiming that they were Brahmanical in source and disseminated therefrom amounts to pure conjecture. This is not a mere hiccup for a project centered on recovering peasant consciousness: an overwhelmingly elitist (colonial) archive of evidence endemic to a largely illiterate society, while craftily surmounted by historians such as Barbara Hanawalt, has consistently plagued "Subaltern Studies." However, having been a major point of debate, it appears that the Subalternist scholars are now beginning to be inventive in their use of sources.

Guha's Elementary Aspects--originally published in the early 1980s and then for an audience mainly limited to South Asian studies--is perhaps the most interesting work of social theory since Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish. It is also a model of a new way of writing history "from below." Its implications touch not only history, but also the broad field of postcolonial studies in both the humanities and social sciences.

The Lost City stories in the Dinotopia series are among the best. This one is no exception. My son enjoyed it a lot, though he is starting to outgrow the age group. For others with this problem, try DINOSAUR WARS, by Thomas Hopp, which has a similar feel, though the dinosaurs are not nearly so NICE.

It's a very good book so far. I'm on page 60. I reccomend this book to ages 9&up.

This is an excellent book. However, there are serious shortcomings. I don't understand why Scott deliberately ignored two major peasant demonstrations in the state of Kedah in the 1980s. I suppose taking these into account would have contradicted his exaltation of the everyday forms of resistance. Surely we expect a social scientist and especially a Malaysian expert to be knowledgeable of different kinds of resistance among the peasantry. Furthermore, I would have expected Scott to explore the relationship between resistance and social change. I really wonder the concept of everyday forms of resistance can really address the class expoitation of the peasantry. Scott's works have been quite influential in Malaysia.

This is a brilliant book on how the weak seeks revenge and 'attacks' the strong, in the most subtle, indirect yet effective ways. However, since the data collected is based on field work conducting during the day time, the author has totally excluded one of the most powerful weapons of the weak, namely, the use of magic(black or white), an activity usually initiated and conducted after dark. Since the author spends most of his time at night to write his field notes, he failed to gather material on the 'nocturnal' weapon of the weak. Sadly, we are only offered only half weapon of the weak.

In understanding Chinese political violence in my Master's thesis I tried to show political power as it actually exists and functions in real life. To do this I used Scott's work, whose focus on orthopraxy over orthodoxy, miniture rebellion and slander began in this work and was continued in "Domination and the Arts of Resistance". Scott is insightful, clear and important: he shows how the elite try to raise the stakes of rebellion past what is acceptable to the subordinate and how the subordinate use the lowest risk, yet highly effective, tools of rebellion at their disposal. Required reading for those trying to understand politics without becoming mired in gross oversimplification.

Eye of the Beast provided a great portrayal of the actions and crimes of James Wood. The only thing lacking was the past history that led Wood to act out in such a way. The book started after he had already been in prison for an earlier crime, but no insight into the development of beast inside. Regardless the book was a great read!

This book was a must read for my family. We grew up with his family. The way the writer explained David Haggards involvement was great. It shows that family doesn't always protect family when someone is doing wrong. David is a very nice and gentle man and I am glad that the book did nothing to show differently. I have read this book twice and it has helped me to caution my daughter on how to not trust strangers. It also explains to her the dangers of people in this world.This book also shows the hard work and emotional toll that being a police officer takes on people. Even when they do their best it isn't always enough to make things safe. This world has some evil people in it that are often protected by the judical system.

This is a well written book that I believe does a good job of exploring the life of James Woods. I recommend this as a good read for any true crime buff who is interested in serial murders.

Many may argue that the title of this review is nonsensical-I agree. It was a ruse. I found this book to be, most simply, erudite. This is a wonderful case where the book is merely a vehicle of message. I was not particularly attached to any of the characters and I was not meant to be attached. No character is ever truly developed and they, in effect, act as mirrors of the personality of Amory Blaine. Its just him from different directions. Even with them surrounding him-hes still not quite lovable as a character(However, I thought the concept of Amory was great).Noting this, I found the book insightful. Fitzgerald certainly had alot to say about the generation in question. He emphasized their feelings of disenchantment and emphasized this by the seemingly stale characters of the novel. He may have coined one of the best phrases that I have seen in such a novel-"I know myself, but that is all I know". Its a line I'll have to remember. Its a good read, sophisticated, and worth it for it's ambitions.

I love this book so much, it kills me. I love Amory Blaine, with all his flaws and imperfections, that it seems I'll never find a man in the world, because this creation, of this man, was somehow a fiat from God. Usually after reading something that means very much to me, I get this strange sad feeling - After reading some of Hemingway, I thought he was such an adorable man, and wished he were alive... talk to him, anything, to appropriate some of that passion and that gift and that wonder for myself. I get the same feeling with T.S. Eliot... But Amory Blaine? Shoot! Can you fall in love with a literary character?

With Fitzgerald, it seems you can. I'd rather sleep with who he creates than he himself. This was the first Fitzgerald I've ever read - then I read all the rest of his novels. Several times each. Because I want to be a writer, and am somewhat of a writer I guess, I can't say this is my favorite Fitzgerald novel AS A WRITER. But as a PERSON, a young person, perhaps it is. Or it's very close.

This Side of Paradise is beautiful, ugly, brave, cowardly, immaculate, flawed. It's paradise lost and paradise regained and paradise in purgatory. It's everything life and man should or shouldn't be, all at once. I can perfectly understand why someone wouldn't like this novel, wouldn't understand, wouldn't appreciate. But I also understand that if all the world were Amory-ish or Amory-leaning, Amory-sympathetic, Amory-lovers, or even Amory-haters - somehow the world would just collapse and be ruined. And I think this is also a bit of what Fitzgerald was trying to impart, so it is as it should be.

This Side of Paradise is a truly classic work. Be warned though, having read The Great Gatsby as well, these are different books. Not better or worse, just different. As a member of the incoming Freshman class at Princeton, I read the book before starting. I will easily admit to not liking the first half of the book. However, the 2nd half is an, albeit depressing (until the last few pages), wonderfully written work about the lost soul of the youth (grr. . .I'm 18 and using the word youth) of the 1920s. The last 10 pages are offer an unparalleled view into the soul of a truly remarkable character. I didn't personally like Amory (for a variety of reasons), ie, I wouldn't want him to be my best friend, but he was an amazing character study (pardon the term). Learning about him through Fitzgerald was a fabulous experience. This book is definitely worth reading.

Let's get one thing clear from the begining, if you're looking for a comprehensive history of Burma/Myanmar with analysis on how it has become one of the most repressive nations in the world, this is not your book. Rather, Marshall's book is a sometimes witty, sometimes heartbreaking "in the footsteps of" style travelogue, in which he manages to travel around modern Burma/Myanmar, following the path of an obscure Victorian adventurer/explorer (and fellow Scotsman) who laid the groundwork for British colonial rule. The core theme is that in Scott's day, Burma was a little known area unpenetrated by the West and populated by a diverse assortment of tribes with varrying degrees of hostility-and some 125 years later Burma/Myanmar remains that way in many ways.

Marshall scoured Scott's unpublished diaries and other sources (all thankfully listed in a comprehensive bibliography) before embarking on four sparate trips. The most straightforward of these was a journey from Rangoon upriver to the old imperial capital of Mandalay and then into the some of the hinterlands. Another trip involved travlling through northern Thailand to the border, where ethnic Shan rebels are attempting to resist Burmese army genocide. A third trip took him from northern Thailand across the border and into the hills near the Laotian and Chinese border. And the most harrowing trip involved slipping across the Chinese border and into ethnic Wa territory where he searches for a legendary lake from which the Wa say they evolved from tadpoles. These trips are crisply related, intertwined with accounts of Scott's travels and life, and background history.

While Marshall certainly doesn't defend British colonialism, he does credit it for introducing modernity to the region and for creating a nation-allbeit juryrigged -from disparate tribes. Marshall lays Burma/Myanmar's current status as human rights disaster area and its herion-exporting based economy firmly at the feet of a military junta that seized power in 1962 and has held an iron grip on the country ever since. An iron grip that is assisted by ethnic Wa drug lords, whose operations rival that of their more famous Colombian counterparts. Burma/Myanmar's economy is wholy dependent on the exporting of illegal drugs by Wa drug lords in collusion with the military. Historically this has been heroin, but in recent years, mehtamphedamine and ecstacy production is said to rival the most sophisticated European operations, and the drug lords have branched out into music and software piracy. With the country's money and guns all linked together in such tidy self-perpetuating interests, it's difficult to see how the stanglehold will ever be broken short of outside intervention.

A great book about tragic events in a beautiful country. The author shadows the travels and travails of Victorian adventurer/administrator, George Scott. The result is a narrative that is readable and engrossing. Marshall presents a wealth of historical material in a relatively short volume (quite unlike the typical contemporary non-fiction book). He is at his weakest when he romanticizes Scott's relationship with the locals in Burma and skirts the excesses of colonial rule. He also neglects Scott's more patronizing and condescending writings about the people of Burma. On the other hand, Marshall presents a very readable account of comtemporary history in the country and a credible portarait of the current regime.

I have visited Burma in the past few years and Marshall's descriptions of people and places were quite evocative of what I saw. Hopefully, the same will be true for other readers, regardless of whether they have traveled there or not.

This is not an even-handed scholarly study of Burma -- thank goodness. It moves along just like a journey, in fits and starts, pausing here, rushing there.

Focusing on Sir George Scott, British Empire-builder of a hundred years ago, Marshall paints a vivid picture of Burma today. His writing is extraordinarily full of life, leading the reader from sympathy to outrage, from suspense to laughter. This is not a book you want to give to someone recuperating from surgery: Marshall is one of the funniest writers I have ever read, and would play havoc on surgical stitches.

One point I would like to debate: his discussion of the Kayan/Padaung families working for the Hupin Hotel in Yawnghwe/Nyaungshwe. I know the family that runs the Hupin personally -- several branches of the clan, actually, and count several of the staff among my friends. Yes, they are not running the hotel for their health, and yes, they are making a profit, but in all sincerity, I do not think their dealings with the Kayan are as heartless as Marshall depicts.

There are two families of Kayan by Inle Lake. Marshall met the ones hired by the Hupin, not those moved in by the government. The Hupin went into the mountains and made a deal with the family: they would build a house for them, give the men jobs in factories around Yawnghwe, the women would work for the hotel, and the kids would go to school at Hupin's expense. They are paid monthly salaries and medical expenses, and any weddings and what-not are paid for by the Hupin. Some of the children have reached high school, and are still going strong. Few children in the countryside get so much schooling. One little girl envied all the attention her big sister got from tourists because of the rings on her neck. The little girl raised such a fuss that her parents agreed to let her have rings on her neck, even though she had not reached the traditional age for that. BTW: she refuses to go to school.

The price for a photo with the Padaung is US$3: this is split 3 ways, between the guide, the hotel, and the Padaung (US$1 is a good day's wage for someone working in Yangon, a week's salary for the countryside.) The Padaung are free to go back to Kayah state. When they go, they bring handicrafts back to the hotel, which they sell to tourists; this money goes into their own pockets. My friends from the Hupin asked the Kayan to lower the price of the bracelets I was buying, and let me tell you, it was a struggle! These are not listless zombies meekly obeying a master's wishes.

Marshall describes a concrete compound. I am not sure what he is talking about, unless it is the area outside their compound, beyond the bamboo bridge. Their wooden house was built Kayan style, in accordance with their specific wishes. They are an extremely conservative tribe. Marshall makes much of the women not leaving their compound. The Padaung are shy people, and the women do not speak Burmese, so they are not willing to range far. Also, I have heard from separate, unrelated sources that there is a danger for Padaung women to roam, because there have been cases of their being -- not exactly kidnapped, but taken off for show in Europe.

Marshall says "the hotel staff member broke into a practiced spiel." We may not be talking about the same man, I did not speak English with the Padaung man I went with, but I suspect the "practiced spiel" may be memorized word for word by someone who speaks minimal English, and may not have confidence in leaving the beaten path.

I deeply feel that the Hupin is more than fair in its dealings with its staff, whether they be Burman, Shan, Chinese, Kayan, or others. When I told the Hupin family what Marshall had written about them, they were quite hurt. Frankly, they are making enough money from tourists, they do not feel the need to exploit the workers. Marshall went to Burma expecting to see the disadvantaged being exploited, so when he saw the disadvantaged, he assumed they must be getting exploited. In the case of the Hupin, I can vouch that he was wrong.

All in all, though, this is an excellent picture of Burma, including parts most of us will never see. I hope Marshall is hard at work on his next book. This is an author to keep an eye on.

I am going to be very careful in my criticism of this work. Written by an attorney with a vivid imagination and in later offerings a far better narrative, this is a formula book with a difficult to swallow plot and nearly impossible to believe characters.

I am not going to attack this book because I think it will appeal to the audience it is marketed to. It was written as a religious thriller. A legal page turner with a biblical perspective. There is a strong lack of character development, abysmal neo-novelist errors and a good does of some stereotypical depiction of race, sex, politics and geography. All of these would mean a negative star ration for a secular novel aimed at a general audience, but I think most readers of this genre of novel will like it very much and enjoy every page.

There are twists and turns, though each one is fairly predicable. The protagonist is a female prosecutor who is widowed and raising small children. She is swept away, romance novel style, by a charismatic politician in a matter of hours according to the book and that is just the beginning of the implausible and sometimes impossible situations delivered to the reader. Still, I think there is a segment of readers who will love all this.

So though I was not impressed with this book, I will say it has some merit and there are those who will enjoy it very much. Bell's later books are much better written and show a polish and skill this one does not. I won't detract from the message that runs through out this work, either. It is a sweet if not overused devotional to the goodness and power of God.

I work in a Christian bookstore where one of my perks is getting to read a lot of Christian fiction. This is well above average in style, content, plot, and relevancy. The Christian message is loud and clear. Enjoyed it from the start.

I read it in two days. The author made me feel the rising panic of the main character as her family life, her career, her ethics, and her romantic future collided. The courtroom politics made me want to scream--because they were so realistic! I've read all Bell's books and want more. He is a master of legal thrillers.

This book reveals the extensive role the U.S. government, organized crime, civilians, played in the assasination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. William F. Pepper had, through years of investigation, wrote a book that tells us the truth of the assasination. Theres not much for me to say except that if a student, from Singapore, who had nothing to do with the one of the most prominent figure in the history of the United States, bothered to post a review about a book which narrates events leading up to his murder and afterwards, surely tells a lot about the book.

This is a very revealing book, exhaustively researched and written in a style that is reasonably easy to read. Read it if you are open to the possibility that the government doesn't always tell us the whole truth about things and you think that, in theory at least, it may do some evil things quite deliberately. Otherwise, don't bother.

As someone who reads widely and often, I can honestly say this: Very few books I have ever read have had as profound an impact upon me as Dr. William Pepper's meticulously and exhaustively researched "Orders To Kill". Dr. Pepper spent upwards of 18 years researching the facts behind the King Assassination and is probably the world's leading authority on the subject. "Orders To Kill" contains the results of those 18 years of investigation.

What he found is chilling and disturbing, and should make us wonder what happened to our "democracy": The government of the United States, among others, was deeply involved in the killing. And in a testament to Dr. Pepper's tenacity and skill as an investigative journalist, many of those responsible for King's political murder have actually admitted their complicity in the book (These facts do not 'give away' the plot, since this information is contained on the outside back of the book and because it takes a book of over 500 pages like this one to fully explain the enormity of the event it describes).

In fact, one of the men implicated in the assassination, witnessed the shooting himself and names the individual who actually fired the bullet that killed Dr. King (Hint: it is not James Earl Ray). Of course, this individual named names only after being assured by Dr. Pepper that he would be immune from prosecution for his role in the killing.

Dr. Pepper, through sheer persistence, an iron will, and a burning desire for the truth, has written a book that will grab the reader from page one, and not let go until the bitter (very) end.

The tale it so skillfully tells is a tragic one and is of epic proportions. But it is a tale that must be told, for if truth is to prevail in this world, as I believe it must, then books like this one must be written. I cannot recommend a book more highly than I recommend this one. Read it and prepare to be disgusted, frightened, saddened, and in the end, amazed and hopefully glad that the truth has finally prevailed.

I thought this would be useful in planning my trip through Nevada and northern California, and I read the book thinking, "Wow, this is a really in-depth guide!"; but when I actually got to my destinations, I found it to be essentially worthless. It tells you what cities are in California and Nevada (may as well just buy a map), and the names of some restaurants and accomodations (which you find out anyway, once you're there.) And since the book gives you no idea about how good or bad the accomodations are, what's really the point? I could find the same information (or better) online, for free. One thing I do like about the guide: the boxed asides often give entertaining and interesting information about a certain place or activity. But for the most part, I don't find Lonely Planet guides to be useful for the way I travel.

A side note about accomodations: for Caliente, NV, they name "Caliente Hot Springs Motel" as being one of the few places to stay. What they don't mention is that it's totally disgusting. Trust me, I once worked there. What kind of useful guide book is this if they don't tell you what motels have cigarette burns in the sheets and 20-year-old grunge on the walls?

A few wrong turns here and there but generally essential Lonely Planet quality throughout. A good overview. Well written.

Lonely Planet shows the little Calirfornia towns in detail. Towns like Arcata, Chico, Merced to name a few. Others like Fodors dont do this. Great and in depth.

The first few chapters of this book will change the way you view the world. The second half of the book tends to drag a little, but overall, the book is a good introduction to the idea of authoritarian high modernism.

The above reviewer, Stirling S Newberry, writes, "The book is part of a useful discussion, but the context and knowledge to engage in it does not seem to be present at this time. Unfortunate."

Actually, what is most unfotunate is that Newberry failed to that Scott allows his assertions regarding social engineering at the behest of an individual state apply just as well to, for example, international aid regimes and foreign hegemons who strive to "remake" the world and its societies after a single vision (8).

Scott's concern in Seeing Like a State is to make a case against an "imperial or hegemonic planning mentality that excludes the necessary role of local knowledge and know-how. Scott goes on to argue, "The most tragic episodes of state-initiated social engineering originate in a pernicious combination of four elements." The first is a simplification and aggregation of facts. Scott argues that states manipulate otherwise complex, dynamic, discrete and often unique circumstances into simplified, static, aggregated, and standardized data, and that these form unrealistic "snapshots" which often miss the most vital aspects of the situation. The second is what Scott terms "high-modernist ideology." Scott defines this as "a strong, one might even say muscle-bound, version of the self-confidence about scientific and technical progress, the expansion of production, the growing satisfaction of human needs, the mastery of nature (including human nature), and above all, the rational design of social order commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws." The combination of these two elements can be devastating when the third element, an authoritarian state, is "willing and able to use the full weight of its coercive power to bring the high-modernist designs into being" over the fourth element, "a prostrate civil society that lacks the capacity to resist these plans."

Throughout his work, Scott provides evidence that centrally managed social plans inevitably go awry. The reason for this, he argues, is that state imposed development initiatives wreak havoc upon the complex social interdependencies of peoples who, in the first place, are not adequately understood. Scott argues that for development initiatives to be successful, they must have their starting point in, first, the recognition of, and then the incorporation of, local, practical knowledge. He states that such forms of knowledge are just as important as "formal, epistemic knowledge." He thus argues against the sorts of developmental theories and practices that disregard metis.

In detailing the general methodology in which states have gone about solving the problem of underdevelopment, Scott argues that states-usually represented by aloof bureaucrats sitting in offices-approach development from the proverbial "bird's eye view" without adequately accounting for, and incorporating, the proverbial "worm's eye view." Such social engineering, Scott asserts, requires the simplification and standardization of complex facts, and in the process, essential knowledge of the facts are lost. At its worst, the result is tragedy, disaster, and human suffering. At its best, unplanned outcomes result, usually at great human and state expense.

Scott contrasts state simplifications with metis, which he defines as, "a wide array of practical skills and acquired intelligence in responding to a constantly changing natural human environment." Examples of metis are farmers knowing when to plant by looking at when the leaves on certain local trees begin to sprout, or describing the size of a farm by the number of workers needed to tend it, rather than by acreage. One region may have highly labor-intensive land, while another may not be so intensive. Forcing land to be described in terms of acreage negates this useful information, which information is the key thing lost in return for the "standardization" of discourse and knowledge. As well, when states and development planners dictate that all collective farms must plant at the same time, local knowledge is again lost-along with, Scott shows with a multitude of case studies, productivity.

Scott develops his argument to show that when citizens, events, cultural characteristics of peoples, and the natural environment are not easily standardized and quantifiable, there is an incentive for the state to alter the population to fit the desired "measurements" and proper "standards." For example, states privatize collectively owned lands to tax them more easily. In order to track more easily "consolidated" people into a larger development vision, the state forces villagers with deep historical roots to adopt surnames. Even if this means altering the very fabric of their society, the "larger" goals must give way to "smaller" visions. Scott states that, "the builders of the modern nation-state do not merely describe, observe, and map; they strive to shape a people and landscape that will fit their techniques of observation." Scott is prolific in citing historical examples to support his claims.

Many among the Haitian peasantry would sum up Scott's arguments with a Haitian proverb: "The big branch at the top of the tree thinks it has the best view, but it fails to see the sights enjoyed by the little bud tossed about by the wind." Damage therefore is the result.

James Scott is known for portraying the moral world of peasants, showing how they have resisted the encroachment of capitalism and the state. Now he investigates the other side: the experts, bureaucrats, and revolutionaries whose grandiose schemes to improve the human condition have inflicted untold misery on the twentieth century. Seeing Like a State can be read, along with Foucault's Discipline and Punish and James Ferguson's The Anti-Politics Machine, as a classic of 'structural dysfunctionalism.' The point (put metaphorically) is not merely that the cure for social ills has proven inadequate-but that the disease inhered in the diagnosis, and that failure will continue so long as the doctors prevail.

The dysfunction, Scott argues, derived from three modern conditions. One was the ambition to remake society (and ecology) to conform to a rational plan. It is the conviction-expressed by such varied characters as Robert Owen, Le Corbusier, and Mao (pp. 117, 341)-that the present is a blank sheet, to be inscribed at will. Putting this into effect required a second condition: comprehensive information about individuals and property, gathered by a centralized bureaucracy. The third condition, what made the combination lethal, was a state sufficiently powerful to force its radically rational schemes on their 'beneficiaries.' This was characteristic of post-revolutionary and post-colonial regimes, and so the book devotes chapters to collectivization in the Soviet Union and ujamaa 'villagization' in Tanzania. But the basic vision, Scott emphasizes, was common to experts everywhere. Three Americans planned a Soviet sovkhoz in their Chicago hotel room; a democratic populist built Brasília, which is also accorded a chapter.

In probing the pathology of planning, Scott brilliantly exposes how experts conflated aesthetics with efficiency. They believed that social and ecological organization was rational only insofar as it conformed to their visual aesthetic (here called 'high modernism'). This meant the repetition of identical units, preferably in the form of a geometrical grid. It also entailed spatial segregation: each activity or entity must be allocated its own place. Polycropping was thus anathema to agricultural scientists, as mixed-use was to urban planners. What experts envisaged, of course, was how the thing appeared-from above-on a map or in a model. Along with aesthetics went gigantism, as scale too was confused with efficiency. The space of the plan existed outside geographical locality and historical contingency-obstacles to be eradicated. An ideal city, for example, could be sited anywhere in the world; once built, it would never change. Planners created new spaces in order to create new people, the productive and contented automatons imagined by (say) Frederick Taylor or Lenin.

In analyzing their failure, Scott is most valuable for drawing parallels between society and ecology. Collectivized agriculture was doubly deficient, in its use of natural resources and of human beings. Forests as well as cities created on geometrical lines inevitably degenerated. In both realms, radical 'simplifications' destroyed the adaptability and stability that had evolved organically. Scott introduces the Greek word 'metis' (crafty intelligence) to describe the local, unwritten knowledge gained through practice or accumulated over generations. It was adequate to the diversity of natural environments, and was distributed throughout society. This kind of knowledge was disregarded or dismissed by experts. And yet, ironically, their plans would have been still more disastrous without the metis of people subjected to them. Collectivized peasants farmed private plots for the black market; workers in Brasília built shantytowns outside the city.

From an anarchist understanding, Scott has come close to Edmund Burke (never cited directly, though see p. 424). Two centuries ago, he witnessed the eruption of utopian schemes in France and their imposition on India, and realized that the combination of abstract reason and untrammeled power is infinitely destructive. "I cannot conceive how any man can ... consider his country as nothing but carte blanche-upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases." His defense of 'prejudice' resembles Scott's appreciation of metis. The similarity is remarkable given their inimical ideals, aristocratic hierarchy versus democratic equality. If Scott does not fully appreciate his affinity with Burkean conservatism, he does not quite extricate himself from Hayekian liberalism (see p. 8). He succeeds in showing how the ideas behind collectivized agriculture came from plans for giant capitalist farms. Nevertheless, liberal economies are not so prone to pathological dysfunction, because firms are constrained by the need to attract free labor and to make profits. True, as Scott observes, the state often favors inefficient large enterprises (like plantations) because they are easily taxed; they also wield sufficient influence to obtain protection. The reader is left, however, wondering how he will resist being appropriated by opponents of (democratic) 'big government.'

Other questions too remain. Scott asserts a continuity of aim between absolutism and totalitarianism; twentieth-century states simply fulfilled the dreams of their dynastic precursors. Do we really know that such vaunting ambition was common to rulers everywhere, or was it peculiar to Europe since the Renaissance? Scott's critique of pseudo-rational knowledge bears directly on our own disciplines. Many versions of social science proceed from the same assumptions that have been falsified in the ghastly experiments of our century. How can social scientists analyze the irreducible complexity of society, generalize without effacing the particularity of history and geography? In raising such difficult-and fruitful-questions, Seeing like a State is a book of immense importance. It must be read by anyone seeking to understand the modern world.