Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States

by James C. Scott

Any inquiry into state formation like this one risks, by definition, giving the state a place of privilege greater than it might otherwise merit in a more balanced account of human affairs. I wish to avoid this. The facts as I have come to understand them are that an evenhanded species history would give the state a far more modest role than it is normally accorded. That states would have come to dominate the archaeological and historical record is no mystery. For us—that is to say Homo sapiens—accustomed to thinking in units of one or a few lifetimes, the permanence of the state and its administered space seems an inescapable constant of our condition. Aside from the utter hegemony of the state form today, a great deal of archaeology and history throughout the world is state-sponsored and often amounts to a narcissistic exercise in self-portraiture. Compounding this institutional bias is the archaeological tradition, until quite recently, of excavation and analysis of major historical ruins. Thus if you built, monumentally, in stone and left your debris conveniently in a single place, you were likely to be “discovered” and to dominate the pages of ancient history. If, on the other hand, you built with wood, bamboo, or reeds, you were much less likely