<h4 fr-original-style="" style="margin: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85); font-weight: 500; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">“So many books so little time...” Inspired by Frank Zappa, Zappa Times writes about literature, nature, food, and economics. </h4><hr fr-original-style="" style="height: 0px; overflow: visible; border-bottom: none; clear: both; user-select: none; break-after: page; box-sizing: border-box;">State or barbarism?At the center of today's post is a book that has the potential to change the way we look at these and many other questions about our lives and the social institutions that regulate them: James Scott's latest book Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (2017, Yale University Press). Much of the empirical material for this book comes from recent research on the history and archaeology (from 6500 BC to 1600 BC) of Mesopotamia (especially the part south of today's Basra), which is partly located in Turkey and whose fertile lands around the Tigris and Euphrates were home to the first human societies in world history. James Scott, previously known for his work at the intersection of political science and historical anthropology, continues the long-term historical and archaeological critique he began in his previous book, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.This critique is centralized around the linear developmentalist historical narrative that focuses on agriculture and civilization. This grand narrative has been taught in schools all over the world for more than a century, and its assumptions underpin dominant discourses on the course of history and future of the world, both in politics and in everyday life.&nbsp;<p contenteditable="false" fr-original-class="custom-button-wrapper fr-deletable" fr-original-style="text-align:center" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box;"><a bgcolor="#000000FF" color="#FFFFFFFF" contenteditable="false" fr-original-class="custom-button-link" fr-original-style="background-color:#000000FF !important;color:#fafbfc !important" href="https://apos.to/i/state-or-barbarism" rel="noreferrer" style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; color: rgb(250, 251, 252) !important; text-decoration: none; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Read more</a><p contenteditable="false" fr-original-class="custom-button-wrapper fr-deletable" fr-original-style="text-align:center" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; box-sizing: border-box;"><a bgcolor="#000000FF" color="#FFFFFFFF" contenteditable="false" fr-original-class="custom-button-link" fr-original-style="background-color:#000000FF !important;color:#fafbfc !important" href="https://apos.to/n/zappa-times" rel="noreferrer" style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; color: rgb(250, 251, 252) !important; text-decoration: none; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Subscribe</a>

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