Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott

Abstract

Reviewed by: Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott Roger L. Albin Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. By james c. scott. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017. 336 pp. $26.00 (hardcover). This concise, useful, and opinionated book is a critical overview of early state formation in Mesopotamia. The author, James Scott, is an influential social scientist known for his work on the contemporary Southeast Asian peasantry and his skepticism towards the benefits of states for ordinary people. Scott's goal is to present an alternative view of the formation and nature of the earliest states. His primary target is a received model of social evolution featuring teleological progression of human societies from foraging through sedentism-farming to state formation with very strong positive valence assigned to the emergence of states—the necessary and natural transition from savagery to civilization. This model is deeply embedded in the Western intellectual tradition and has analogues in the traditions of other civilizations. Scott's critique is based on systematic reading and analysis of secondary literature, particularly recent research, on ancient Mesopotamia, supplemented by comparative analysis of the histories of other early states. Scott's point of departure is the re-evaluation, common in the anthropological literature, of foraging. Rather than a state of precarious and constant search for food and other resources, Scott presents foraging as systematic and knowledgeable use of a variety of environmental resources, yielding sustenance with less effort and with greater variety than farming. As Scott points out, foraging was often combined [End Page 571] with forms of cultivation and there is a several millennia gap between the first evidences of plant domestication and the emergence of sedentary farming communities. He points also to examples of sedentism in the absence of full-fledged agriculture, particularly in ecologically resource-rich environments such as the alluvial plains of ancient lower Mesopotamia. Rather than being a natural and desirable transition, Scott presents the emergence of full-fledged sedentary farming societies as accompanied by increased toil, greater risk of disease, and social inequality. Scott follows Jared Diamond, who once termed the emergence of sedentary farming societies as "the worst mistake in the history of the human race."1 Scott's treatment of the emergence of early states is analogous to his discussions of farming societies. Transition to farming was a necessary precursor to state emergence, but states did not appear for millennia after the emergence of farming communities. Again, the transition from small farming communities to states appears to be a bad bargain. The great majority of inhabitants of early states were subject to increased exploitation in the forms of extractive taxation and coerced labor, intensification of warfare, and general loss of communal autonomy. Scott emphasizes the fragility of early states, pointing to increased risk of major disease outbreaks and ecological limitations that also contributed to the negative aspects of state emergence. Three of Scott's analyses are particularly interesting. First, Scott nicely describes sedentary farming communities as a novel hybrid ecosystem. This includes the suite of domesticated plants and non-human animals, and also a number of commensals and important parasites such as disease organisms, their vectors, and crop pests. This ecosystem contains co-domesticated humans, essentially the reciprocal result of plant and animal domestication. Co-domestication of humans involved major changes in social organization, including subjugation of other humans, notably women. Second, drawing on Robert Carneiro's model of early state formation and Diamond's biogeographic approach to the emergence of farming, Scott presents a thoughtful biogeographic analysis of why early states emerged in specific regions, stressing the importance of annual grain crops (wheat species, barley, rice, and perhaps maize) whose biology favored relatively easy assessment and taxation.2 Finally, Scott argues for an ironic result of emergent states, [End Page 572] that major beneficiaries were not the populations of states but rather surrounding non-state peoples, particularly major Eurasian pastoralist societies. Following such scholars as Owen Lattimore, Thomas Barfield, and Nicola Di Cosmo, Scott argues that states provided non-state peoples with opportunities for plunder and tribute, and as state emergence enhanced long-distance trade, also opportunities...