The art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia
Abstract
For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them - slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an 'anarchist history', is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states.
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Untitled work
Huang, F. (2014) · Late Imperial China
- Authors
- Scott, J. C.
- Corresponding author
- James C. Scott
- ORCID
- James C. Scott
- Venue
- Choice Reviews Online
- Publisher
- American Library Association
- Published
- 2010-07-01
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 47-6429-47-6429
- ISSN
- 0009-4978 (ISSN-L)
- 1523-8253
- OpenAlex
- W561686183
- Cited by
- 3,940
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 202 · 2024: 248 · 2023: 259 · 2022: 349 · 2021: 367 · 2020: 396 · 2019: 426 · 2018: 330 · 2017: 223 · 2016: 209 · 2015: 213 · 2014: 233 · 2013: 212 · 2012: 99
- Type
- book review
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Choice Reviews Online (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Anthropological Studies and Insights
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Keywords
- Zomia, statelessness, state-making, upland Southeast Asia, mountain peoples, ethnic identity, orality, prophetic leadership, mobility, agrarian practices, genealogy, history of the state
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