I regularly light a candle at my little shrine to the holy Saint James C. Scott, patron saint of understanding the state. This is largely due to Seeing Like a State, which was basically a jarring PARADIGM SHIFT for my brain. Seriously, that book. It makes you reframe everything: statistics, governments, hill people (NEW HAMPSHIRE), last names, everything. It is a very good book.

It is also a super dense book, and a tome, and thus a bit of a slog. Here is bite sized portion, courtesy John Green.

Anyway, anarchy dances around the undercurrent of James C. Scott's most notable works (much like it does under Kim Stanley Robinson's!), and this book is a little throwaway where Scott decides to FACE UP to this anarchy stuff once and for all.

It starts strong, with nice discussions about anonymous, dispersed, disorganized disobedience - jay walking, foot dragging, shirking, burning stuff, breaking stuff, other forms of low-level sabotage - as the roots of anarchist resistance (LA RESISTANCE!). These forms of resistance - silent non-cooperation, mutually agreed upon via game theory-like behaviors (e.g. the norm of driving 65mph in a 55mph zone) - can really gum up the works of society, and Scott argues that it's healthy to maintain these "anarchist calisthenics" and practice our free thinking rule-breakery whenever we can. Throw yourself onto the wheels, and the gears, and the levers, and make the machine stop!

He discusses how, historically, institutions and formalized resistance (e.g. movements with manifestos, leaders, organizations, minutes) have actually been hindrances and choke-holds on organic, dispersed resistance, and how the latter usually prologues the former (as opposed to the opposite).

Anyway, that was all great, and inspiring, and interesting. But then there are digressions which get progressively more tangential, until he's taking pot shots at the Yale tenure system (yo, and I'm sympathetic to how ridiculous the academic tenure system is) and making points so broad that I started to lose focus.

So. It's not a Seeing Like a State, nor the Art of Not Being Governed. It's okay. I feel like I had more anarchist education in Kim Stanley Robinson's books, honestly!

A good primer for anarchist thought. Set the mood (or the lense) from which I believe it will be easier to read more anarchist literature. Does not delve into the specifics of any political movement, rather points out the flaws of state order and the influence of vernacular and unorganised acts of resistance in shaping the world.

A wonderfully gentle and easy introduction to anarchism. Scott doesn't let the reader drown in Theory and guides them through some basic anarchist ideas

Aside from some engaging anecdotes here, there's not a whole lot to recommend for someone already familiar with Scott's major works. It's a distillation of themes recurring throughout his previous works. That being said, this would be a nice introduction for someone new to Scott, and a jumping-off place for further reading.

The most off-putting thing is the graphic design: specifically, page numbers in white print inside black squares, which makes them almost unreadable.