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Against the Grain
- A Deep History of the Earliest States
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
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Publisher's 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.
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What listeners say about Against the Grain
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- Anonymous User
- 21-07-2022
Great overview of early modern state formations
Really important analysis of new historical, archeological and other evidence on early state formations and their limitations.
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- Charlie
- 24-03-2018
Irritating droning narrator. Great thesis. Book could do with further to reduce incessant replication of arguments.
Irritating droning narrator. Great thesis and arguments. Book lacks crafting; too much replication of the same ideas. But succeeds in making you look at issues with fresh ideas, and dispels old dogma.
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