Books like The Art of Not Being Governed by James C. Scott

James C. Scott’s *The Art of Not Being Governed* offers a comprehensive anthropological and historical analysis of the Zomia highlands, a region of Southeast Asia rising above 300 meters that stretches from the Central Highlands of Vietnam to northeastern India, including parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and four Chinese provinces. The book examines the millions of minority peoples who populate these uplands—such as the Akha, Hmong, Karen, Lahu, Mien, and Wa—whose diverse ethnic and linguistic identities have enabled them to maintain a tradition of political resistance to state control. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and archival research, Scott charts the ways in which these communities have practiced forms of passive resistance, feigned compliance, and other tactics that have preserved their autonomy over centuries.

First publish date: 2009