Against the Grain : A Deep History of the Earliest States

An Economist Best History Book 2017 “History as it should be written.”-Barry Cunliffe, Guardian “Scott hits the nail squarely on the head by exposing the staggering price our ancestors paid for civilization and political order.”-Walter Scheidel, Financial Times 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 reprod