Résultats pour "James C Scott" dans Toutes les catégories

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.

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.

Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.

Confrontations between the powerless and powerful are laden with deception—the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, laborers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed.

This sensitive picture of the constant and circumspect struggle waged by peasants materially and ideologically against their oppressors shows that techniques of evasion and resistance may represent the most significant and effective means of class struggle in the long run.

Rivers, on a long view, are alive. They are born; they change; they shift their channels; they forge new routes to the sea; they move both gradually and violently; they can teem (usually) with life; they may die a quasi-natural death; they are frequently maimed and even murdered. It is the annual flood pulse—the brief time when the river occupies the floodplain—that gives a river its vitality, but it is human engineering that kills it, suppressing the flood pulse with dams, irrigation, siltation, dikes, and levees.

James Scott taught us what's wrong with seeing like a state. Now, in his most accessible and personal book to date, the acclaimed social scientist makes the case for seeing like an anarchist. Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary cooperation without hierarchy, Two Cheers for Anarchism is an engaging, high-spirited, and often very funny defense of an anarchist way of seeing - one that provides a unique and powerful perspective on everything from everyday social and political interactions to mass protests and revolutions.

Fire is rarely out of the headlines, from large natural wildfires raging across the Australian or Californian countrysides to the burning of buildings such as the disasters of Grenfell tower and Notre Dame. Fire on these scales can represent a serious risk to human life and property. But the advent of fire made and controlled by humans also represented a crucial point in our evolution, allowing us to cook our food, forge our weapons, and warm our homes.

The real story of one of the greatest explorers who ever lived by the man described by the Guinness Book of Records as ‘the world's greatest living explorer’. Sir Ranulph Fiennes is uniquely qualified to write a new biography of Captain Scott. This is the first biography of Scott by someone who has experienced the deprivations, the stress and the sheer physical pain that Scott lived through.

Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters is a collection of 23 stories focused around the theme of strange creatures in the vein of Pacific Rim, Godzilla, Cloverfield, and more. The anthology opens with a foreword by Jeremy Robinson, author of Project Nemesis, the highest selling Kaiju novel in the United States since the old Godzilla books - and perhaps even more than those. Then, from New York Times best sellers to indie darlings Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters features authors that are perfectly suited for writing larger-than-life stories.

After the liberation of Front Royal from the Magus’ tyranny, Ryan Cawdor and his companions grieve the heart-wrenching loss of loved ones, but must carry on. Ryan and his surviving friends assume leadership roles in Front Royal, contributing to the rebuilding of the ville and the struggle to carve out a future for the beleaguered community. Ryan must learn how to be a good father for his unique baby daughter, and with the support of his larger family do his best to help her navigate the treacherous future that is her destiny.

It’s March 1918, and World War I is raging in Europe. In the trenches in northern France, a group of British officers, led by the war-weary Captain Stanhope, ready themselves for a major German attack while facing their worst fears. R.C. Sherriff drew on his own experiences in World War One to create the play, which premiered in 1928 and is now considered one of the preeminent works about the horrors of war.

In Texas’s Big Bend country, every man has a price. For crime lord Harry Holland and his ruthless gang of cutthroats, that price is $20,000—a ransom demand for the kidnapped daughter of a retired Army colonel. So far, neither the Army, the Rangers, nor bounty hunters have been able to penetrate Holland’s guarded fortress. In desperation, the colonel turns to the Jackals. As a longtime friend, retired cavalry sergeant Sean Keegan is determined to bring the man’s daughter back alive—with or without the ransom money—but first he needs to convince his partners.

Playing protector to a runaway puppy-faced poodle, Kaiser Wrench trades barbs and lead with crooked politicos, snarling hoods, and a sex-hungry female.

Filled with gangsters, cops on the take, and a peregrine desperate to reclaim his territory, Ashton teeters on the brink of an all-out gang war. A Mainland Investigations detective is called into town by Paul Mason, who is murdered before briefing the lizard on the case. Pitting faction against faction, and with a target on his own back, the detective must save Ashton before his number is up.

Private Detective Kaiser Wrench finds a dead vixen who has been beaten to death. He tries to stay out of it until he gets a note from someone he put in prison asking him to take the case. A reporter friend has stumbled onto a clue, but dies with a handkerchief in his hand trying to get the information to him. So begins a complicated and baffling case involving the sadistic deaths of other females trying to break into the fashion industry. Can Kaiser, with the help of his beloved Velvet, break the ring that is crushing the lives of vulnerable females?

As long-buried memories from his hidden past begin to resurface, Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny feel compelled to return to the small country town where Ishmael crash-landed in 1963; the place where his memories began. Norton Hedley is no ordinary town. Apparitions, sudden disappearances, sightings of unusual beasts: For centuries, the place has been plagued by a series of inexplicable events. Ishmael’s first task is to track down local author Vincent Smith, the one man he believes may have some answers. Ishmael and Penny aren’t the only ones seeking the mysterious Mr. Smith.

Tired of losing weight and then putting it back on? Want to make healthier food choices? Sick of fad diets and exercise routines? The truth is...fad diets do not work! They are short-term solutions to a long-term problem. Sure, you might lose weight for a few weeks (or months), but if you don't change your underlying habits, then you'll eventually put the weight back on.

The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and fuels inoperable - and plunged the world into a dark age humanity was unprepared to face....Michael Havel was flying over Idaho en route to the holiday home of his passengers when the plane’s engines inexplicably died, forcing a less than perfect landing in the wilderness. And as Michael leads his charges to safety, he begins to realize that the engine failure was not an isolated incident.

The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and fuels inoperable - and plunged the world into a dark age humanity was unprepared to face....Michael Havel was flying over Idaho en route to the holiday home of his passengers when the plane’s engines inexplicably died, forcing a less than perfect landing in the wilderness. And as Michael leads his charges to safety, he begins to realize that the engine failure was not an isolated incident.