Agrarian
Studies : Synthetic Work at the Cutting Edge/edited by James C. Scott and Nina
Bhatt. New Delhi, OUP, 2002, x, 310 p., $33.
ISBN 019-566216-4.Agrarian
Studies : Synthetic Work at the Cutting Edge/edited by James C. Scott and Nina
Bhatt. New Delhi, OUP, 2002, x, 310 p., $33.
ISBN 019-566216-4.
Contents: Introduction/James C. Scott. I. State formation and peasant histories: 1.Some ideological aspects of the articulation between kin and tribute: state formation, Military system, and social life in Hesse-Cassel, 1688-1815/Peter Taylor. 2. Dark events and lynching scenes in the collective memory: a dispossession narrative about Austria’s descent into Holocaust/Hermann Rebel. II. Agricultural production and the peasant experience: 3. Agrarian issues during the French revolution, 1787-1799/Peter Jones. 4. Imaging the harvest in early modern Europe/Liana Vardi. III. Agrarian and environmental histories: case studies from South Asia: 5. Nature Ferae: wild animals in South Asia and the standard environment narrative/Paul Greenough. 6. Disease, resistance, and India’s ecological frontier, 1770-1947/David Arnold. 7. Subalterns and others in the agrarian history of South Asia/David Ludden. IV. Economic histories, local markets, and sustainable development: 8. Contesting the "Great Transformation": local struggles with the Market in South India/Ronald J. Herring. 9. Policies for sustainable development/Herman E. Daly. 10. Weaving and surviving in Laichingen, 1650-1900: micro-history as history and as research experience/Hans Medick. Index.
"This book presents an account of an intellectual breakthrough in the study of rural society and agriculture. Its ten chapters, selected for their originality, encompass various disciplines, diverse historical periods and several regions of the world.
"The ten studies recast and expand what is known about rural society and agrarian issues, examining such topics as poverty, subsistence, cultivation, ecology, justice art, custom, law, ritual life, cooperation, and state action. Each contribution provides a point of departure for new study, encouraging deeper thinking across disciplinary boundaries and frontiers.
"The contributors include Paul Greenough, David Arnold, David Ludden and Herman Daly. Their fresh analyses will broaden the perspectives of readers with interests as wide-ranging as rural sociology, environmentalism, political science, history, anthropology, economics, and art history." (jacket)