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<address><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Grain:_A_Deep_History_of_the_Earliest_States">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Grain:_A_Deep_History_of_the_Earliest_States</a><br>
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<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" lang="en"><i>Against the
Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States</i></h1>
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<div id="siteSub" class="noprint">From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia</div>
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<div class="thumbcaption">First edition (publ. <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_University_Press"
title="Yale University Press">Yale University Press</a>)</div>
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<p><i><b>Against The Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States</b></i>
is a 2017 book by <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott" title="James
C. Scott">James C. Scott</a> that sets out to undermine what he
calls the "standard civilizational narrative" that suggests humans
chose to live settled lives based on intensive agriculture because
this made people safer and more prosperous.<sup id="cite_ref-1"
class="reference"><a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Grain:_A_Deep_History_of_the_Earliest_States#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup>
Instead, he argues, people had to be forced to live in the early <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state"
title="Sovereign state">states</a>, which were hierarchical,
beset by malnutrition and disease, and often based on <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery" title="Slavery">slavery</a>.
The book has been praised for re-opening some of the biggest
questions in human history.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Grain:_A_Deep_History_of_the_Earliest_States#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup>
A review in <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_(journal)"
title="Science (journal)"><i>Science</i></a> concludes that the
book's thesis "is fascinating and represents an alternative,
nuanced, if somewhat speculative, scenario on how civilized
society came into being."<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Grain:_A_Deep_History_of_the_Earliest_States#cite_note-3">[3]</a><br>
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<div id="warning"> </div>
<div id="citation">Shablovsky, S. (2017). <i>The perils of
permanence. Science, 357(6350), 459–459.</i>
doi:10.1126/science.aao0427 </div>
<div id="link"> url to share this paper:<br>
<a href="https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.aao0427"><nobr>sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.aao0427</nobr></a>
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