Statist Just-So Stories
26th November 2017
In a provocative new book, Against the Grain, Scott now challenges us to rethink legends about the state and its origins. Populations ruled by states tell stories about their emergence into civilization, stories that cast the non-state peoples around them as primitives and barbarians. These stories are familiar from the era of European imperialism and from early modern philosophers like Locke and Rousseau, but they’re common to state-governed populations around the world and throughout history. Scott calls them into deep doubt.
I have a copy of Against the Grain and have worked about half-way through it. It is well worth reading.