
The Art of Not Being Governed
An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)
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Narrated by:
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Alex Boyles
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By:
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James C. Scott
About this listen
From the acclaimed author and scholar James C. Scott comes the compelling account of Asian peoples who until recently have stemmed the vast tide of state-making to live at arm’s length from any organized state society.
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.
James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells in accessible language the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and he challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.”
This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states.
Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.
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- The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade
- By: Anthony Kaldellis
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In the second half of the tenth century, Byzantium embarked on a series of spectacular conquests. By the early eleventh century, the empire was the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. Yet this imperial project came to a crashing collapse fifty years later, when political disunity, fiscal mismanagement, and defeat at the hands of the Seljuks and the Normans brought an end to Byzantine hegemony. By 1081, Byzantium's very existence was threatened.
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Very Detailed but Tedious
- By Amazon Customer on 09-06-24
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Empires of the Steppes
- By: Kenneth Harl
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 17 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. Their deeds still resonate today. Indeed, these nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East.
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Interview with Dan Carlin
- By Laurie A. Steuart on 08-17-23
By: Kenneth Harl
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History of the Russian Revolution
- By: Leon Trotsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Booth
- Length: 53 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The Russian Revolution of 1917 was one of the most cataclysmic events in world history, profoundly shaping politics, international relations, social patterns, economics and science in the century that followed. It created long-lasting aftershocks which travelled far beyond its geographical borders. How did it happen? What were the sequence of events that led, following the shocking upheaval of the old Romanov order, to a fierce and violent rivalry between a variety of revolutionary factions and the ultimate victory of the Bolsheviks?
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One of the Greatest Works of History Ever Written
- By Sophie on 12-01-22
By: Leon Trotsky
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The Golden Road
- How Ancient India Transformed the World
- By: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: William Dalrymple
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Golden Road, revered historian William Dalrymple corrects the record, telling the captivating story of ancient India’s ascent through a swift and breathtaking tour of the ideas and places Indians created. Treks into the sunless depths of cave monasteries illuminate the origins and spread of Buddhism. Far-flung archaeological expeditions—from the sand-blown Red Sea coast of Egypt, to Afghan mountain refuges, to verdant Cambodian jungles—reveal the impact of Indian commerce.
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Completely unknown until now
- By Reader on 05-07-25
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The Dawn of Everything
- A New History of Humanity
- By: David Graeber, David Wengrow
- Narrated by: Mark Williams
- Length: 24 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state", political violence, and social inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.
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exactly what I've been looking for
- By DankTurtle on 11-10-21
By: David Graeber, and others
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The Ottomans
- Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs
- By: Marc David Baer
- Narrated by: Jamie Parker
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic Asian antithesis of the Christian European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans’ multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe’s heart. Indeed, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting the Ottomans’ remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, historian Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage.
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Great except for pronunt of Turkish names
- By Anonymous User on 11-04-22
By: Marc David Baer
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Amusing Ourselves to Death
- Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
- By: Neil Postman
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, and how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given less and less expression in the form of the printed word, they are rapidly being reshaped to suit the requirements of television.
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Excellent Content Read at Warp Speed
- By chaoticmuse on 03-17-11
By: Neil Postman
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The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
- Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation
- By: Thích Nhất Hạnh
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, now revised with added material and new insights, Nhat Hanh introduces us to the core teachings of Buddhism and shows us that the Buddha’s teachings are accessible and applicable to our daily lives.
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Great overview of Buddhism
- By Nick on 06-24-16
By: Thích Nhất Hạnh
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Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
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Transformative to the point of being revolutionary
- By James C. Samans on 08-14-16
By: David Graeber
Brilliant
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