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Bryn Hammond's Reviews > The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, & Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia
The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, & Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia
by David Sneath
by David Sneath
The devil's advocate. Steppe politics - nobody understands it. This wants to overturn everything you think you know. Tribal egalitarianism? - out the window. Liberty, equality - a fantasy of the observer. Look, I'm not convinced. But such is his challenge, I'll read this three times. Because he has a few decent points. He has a couple of original (as far as I know) ideas. It is the devil's scripture, though, and don't read only this, for heaven's sake.
He gets curmudgeonly. It's pretty agenda-driven. In one sentence his thesis is, steppe societies have always been aristocratic orders (you don't need heads-of-state for that). The 'fierce, free' nomad (as he writes fifty times, in quotes) is a myth. He ends up where very old and old-fashioned books are. Is that a step forward? Possibly. Like I say, nobody understands steppe politics.
The Chinese called the steppe governments 'states on horseback'. I stick that in my head, to tell me, a) yes, they were states; b) but they were different. It's as much as I can swear to.
His theory undoes everything. There was no 'Chinggisid Revolution'. Nor need we explain success on the steppe by a penchant for charisma in leadership. To be fair, that can come across a bit mystical. He thumbs his nose at the charisma talk - he waxes sarcastic - but... no, there's a real thing there he's missed. He's a debunker, and you know what they're like.
I nearly gave this four stars.
He gets curmudgeonly. It's pretty agenda-driven. In one sentence his thesis is, steppe societies have always been aristocratic orders (you don't need heads-of-state for that). The 'fierce, free' nomad (as he writes fifty times, in quotes) is a myth. He ends up where very old and old-fashioned books are. Is that a step forward? Possibly. Like I say, nobody understands steppe politics.
The Chinese called the steppe governments 'states on horseback'. I stick that in my head, to tell me, a) yes, they were states; b) but they were different. It's as much as I can swear to.
His theory undoes everything. There was no 'Chinggisid Revolution'. Nor need we explain success on the steppe by a penchant for charisma in leadership. To be fair, that can come across a bit mystical. He thumbs his nose at the charisma talk - he waxes sarcastic - but... no, there's a real thing there he's missed. He's a debunker, and you know what they're like.
I nearly gave this four stars.
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Ron
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Mar 25, 2012 11:08pm
Bryn, I enjoyed reading your comments on this book. It's so difficult to prove what our ancestors thought. We can only know partially what they did, and, more recently, when writing and history began, said. I doubt we'll ever know for sure how they lived. I'm persuaded, though, by the argument that they were the same humans we are. Their lives might seem exotic to us, but how different, when you get to the heart of it, could they have been? Our conversations on these matters please me.
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