A short history considering the development and social structures of the earliest states and the emergence of settled agriculture. Somewhat scattered and lacking cohesion at times, it is nonetheless all pretty interesting stuff. 

One thing that struck me while reading is that many of the same points are covered in Graeber and Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything (and they were both consulted for this book), but something about this is much more convincing. I wonder if that, in acknowledging that he is not an expert in the fields covered, Scott is more careful in his scope and approach, clearly stating conjectures. Graeber and Wengrow’s book has an arrogance and ideological aggressiveness to it, which is absent here. Some commentary is obviously filtered through Scott’s political views, but not to the overall detriment of the material, and I think that ultimately is what makes this the superior read for me, even though it has many of the same narrative problems. 

But in the end, I don’t think Scott really makes a convincing case for why agrarian settlements and states are inferior to non-states, albeit he raises some interesting points about the problems early states experienced. It never really explains why states kept being established over and over throughout history if all people really wanted to do was escape them.