TY - BOOK ID - 16181650 TI - Against the grain : a deep history of the earliest states PY - 2017 SN - 9780300182910 0300182910 PB - New Haven, Conn. Yale University Press DB - UniCat KW - Agriculture KW - Agriculture and state KW - Farming KW - Husbandry KW - Industrial arts KW - Life sciences KW - Food supply KW - Land use, Rural KW - Agrarian question KW - Agricultural policy KW - State and agriculture KW - Economic policy KW - Land reform KW - Origin of agriculture KW - Agriculture, Prehistoric KW - Domestication KW - Origin. KW - History. KW - Social aspects KW - Government policy KW - History KW - #SBIB:39A3 KW - #SBIB:39A4 KW - Antropologie: geschiedenis, theorie, wetenschap (incl. grondleggers van de antropologie als wetenschap) KW - Toegepaste antropologie KW - Politique agricole KW - Origines KW - Histoire KW - Ancient history KW - Political philosophy. Social philosophy KW - World history KW - Prehistory KW - Origin KW - Social aspects&delete& UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:16181650 AB - An account of all the new and surprising evidence now available for the beginnings of the earliest civilizations that contradict the standard narrative. Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains, and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family-all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction. Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the "barbarians" who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples. ER -