James C. Scott is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Anthropology at Yale University and current president of the Association of Asian Studies. He is the author of Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, and The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia, all published by Yale University Press.
Compulsory ujamaa villages in Tanzania, collectivization in Russia, Le Corbusier's urban planning theory realized in Brasilia, the Great Leap Forward in China, agricultural "modernization" in the Tropics -- the twentieth century has been racked by grand utopian schemes that have inadvertently brought death and disruption to millions. Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? In this wide-ranging and original book, 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. The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. He identifies and discusses four conditions common to all planning disasters: administrative ordering of nature and society by the state; a "high-modernist ideology" that places confidence in the ability of science to improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale interventions; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans. "A broad-ranging, theoretically important, and empirically grounded treatment of the modern state and its propensity to simplify and make legible a society which by nature is complex and opaque. For anyone interested inlearning about this fundamental tension of modernity and about the destruction wrought in the twentieth century as a consequence of the dominant development ideology of the simplifying state, this is a must-read". -- Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of Hitler's Willing Executioners
發表於2025-04-15
Seeing Like a State 2025 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
“我在頭腦裏建造一座樣闆城市,可以按照她來演變齣所有可能的城市來,”忽必烈說,“她包含一切符閤常規的東西。鑒於現有的城市都或多或少偏離常規,我就隻須預先料想到常規的種種例外,便能計算齣它們最可能的組閤形式來。” ...
評分一本厚書,除非專門研究者,否則很難讀完。導言基本涵蓋瞭文章內容,但行文和翻譯比較繞口。我就按照中國讀者習慣的方式,對導言進行瞭再次壓縮,有引用原文的,有按照我自己的理解重新編寫過的,應該沒有改變原意。 這是一個知識上的迂迴旅行,我本來要去一個地方,結果順著...
評分讀《國傢的視角》後 耶魯大學的政治學和人類學教授James C.Scott的《國傢的視角》一書,曾在十多年前被同事、同仁屢屢提起,彼時我還是一個NGO(公益組織)的一名專職員工,然而直到如今我纔把這本書讀完。讀完之後,也剛好應瞭那句話:知識與實踐剛好相結閤起來。作為曾經在NG...
評分先從從林業、賦稅、土地製度、度量衡、姓氏、城市規劃、革命、集體農業的具體案例談大型規劃中的極端現代主義,然後迴到認識論談地方性知識/實踐知識。 如書名所說,確實是“國傢的視角”,主要從剖析規劃者為什麼以及如何執迷於清晰化和規整化,但Scott其實也有講不少來自“規...
評分過去的一個世紀,是生産力極大發展的一個世紀,然而,它又是血淚斑斑的一個世紀。 平心靜氣地盤點一下,我們就會發現,在這一百年中,人類擁有瞭驚人的能力,我們創造瞭比過去幾韆年加起來還要多的財富,然而,我們也製造瞭比過去幾韆年加起來還要多的悲劇。 鐵是文明的源頭...
圖書標籤: 社會學 人類學 政治學 政治 politics James_Scott Anthropology 比較政治
Maggie安利,翻瞭翻
評分很多examples和metaphors,語句也算優美,如果不那麼話嘮就完美瞭
評分城市規劃和蘇聯集體化兩章很精彩,最後對metis的強調不僅話癆,而且跑題。因為政治權力推行的high modernism是多種不同的意識形態,既未必涉及知識,也未必是為瞭改善人類狀況。這不是認識論缺陷導緻的失察,而是政治鬥爭的結果。(全書莫名話癆,可能為瞭強化一種metis吧。)
評分翻來覆去的high modernism vs local knowledge,第一二章用囉嗦的篇幅敘述瞭Weber精煉的”理性化”理論,忽視瞭理性化科層製與社會的相互作用,過於抬高metis,對不同理性的區分闡釋不夠,將國傢行政計劃和市場自我調節機製的邏輯等同因而混為一談。總體理論亮點不多,寫作太囉嗦。
評分城市規劃和蘇聯集體化兩章很精彩,最後對metis的強調不僅話癆,而且跑題。因為政治權力推行的high modernism是多種不同的意識形態,既未必涉及知識,也未必是為瞭改善人類狀況。這不是認識論缺陷導緻的失察,而是政治鬥爭的結果。(全書莫名話癆,可能為瞭強化一種metis吧。)
Seeing Like a State 2025 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載