Review
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"One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades. . . . A
fascinating interpretation of the growth of the modern state. . . . Scott presents a formidable argument against using
the power of the state in an attempt to reshape the whole of society."--John Gray, New York Times Book Review
"Illuminating and beautifully written, this book calls into sharp the nature of the world we now inhabit."--New
Yorker
"James C. Scott has written a powerful, and in many inful, explanation as to why grandiose programs of social
reform, not to mention revolution, so often end in tragedy--the Soviet disaster being the textbook case. . . . He has
produced an important critique of visionary state planning."--Robert Heilbroner, Lingua Franca
"[An] important book. . . . The author's choice of cases is fascinating and goes well beyond the familiar ones like
Soviet collectivization."--Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs
"In a that can only be termed brilliant, [Scott] has produced a major contribution to developmental
literature. . . . This is a book of seminal importance for comparative politics and, indeed, for the social sciences.
Highly recommended."--Choice
"Mr. Scott tells the story in witty, sparkling prose of these (Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, among others) relentless social
engineers and how they tried to impose for all eternity a perfect social order or an urban blueprint, regardless of
human cost and unremitting human refractoriness."--Washington Times
"An important and powerful work that deserves to be read by anyone interested in large-scale public planning. . . .
Among the book's virtues are its lucid style, deep learning, and wide range of fascinating cases."--Gideon Rose,
Washington Monthly
"Where Seeing Like a State is original, and often startling so, is in its meticulous accumulation of empirical evidence
that describes the failure of grandiose state projects to improve the human condition."--Brian C. Anderson, Public
Interest
"Seeing Like a State is a worldly, academic synthesis of the destructive hubris of large-scale rational planning. . . .
What Scott does that is brilliant is talk about how states and large institutions acquire the knowledge that they
ultimately use to govern."--Michael Schrage, Across the Board
"Its global focus, its attention to issues of environment and economic development too often ignored by non profits
scholars, and its impressive grasp of how organizations work, recommend it to anyone seriously interested in the future
of public life."--Peter Dobkin Hall, ARNOVA News
"Scott's book is a paean to human liberty, a very complicated paean. . . . This book [owes] much of its value to the
details of the particular case studies, and to Scott's enthusiasm and ingenuity in seeing links among apparently
different human projects. He has written a remarkably interesting book on social engineering."--Cass R. Sunstein, New
Republic
"In Seeing Like a State James Scott has given us powerful new paradigms of state action and popular resistance. His work
is sure to inspire new thinking and research in history and social sciences."--Fred Murphy, Reader's Catalog
"Brilliant . . . [Scott] has produced a major contribution to developmental literature . . . this is a book of seminal
importance for comparative politics and indeed, for the social sciences."--Choice
"Scott's book . . . is an important and powerful work that deserves to be read by anyone interested in large-scale
public planning. . . . Among the book's virtues are its lucid style, deep learning, and wide range of fascinating
cases."--Gideon Rose, Washington Monthly
"Seeing Like a State is a worldly, academic synthesis of the destructive hubris of large-scale rational planning. . . .
Scott . . . takes a few powerful but basic themes and builds a persuasive case against what he calls 'High Modernism.'
High Modernism, in essence, is the ideology of grand rational planners whose initiatives are based on the perfectibility
of man. What Scott does that is brilliant is talk about how states and large institutions acquire the knowledge that
they ultimately use to govern."--Michael Schrage, Across the Board
Winner of the 2000 Mattei Dogan Award
2015 Wildavsky Award for Enduring Contribution to Policy Studies, from the Public Policy Section of the American
Political Science Association
"James Scott is one of the most original and interesting social scientists whom I know. So it is no surprise that Seeing
Like a State is a broad ranging, theoretically important, and empirically grounded of the modern state. For
anyone interested in learning about this fundamental tension of modernity and about the destruction wrought in the
twentieth century as a consequence of the dominant development ideology of the simplifying state, high modernism, Seeing
Like a State is a must read."--Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Professor of Government and Social Studies at Harvard University
and author of Hitler's Willing Executioners
"A broad-ranging, theoretically important, and empirically grounded of the modern state and its propensity to
simplify and make legible a society which by nature is complex and opaque. For anyone interested in learning about this
fundamental tension of modernity and about the destruction wrought in the twentieth century as a consequence of the
dominant development ideology of the simplifying state, this is a must-read."--Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of
Hitler's Willing Executioners
"The 'perfection' Scott so rightly and with such tremendous skill and erudition debunks in his book he himself has
nearly reached, as far as positing and presenting the problem is concerned. The case of what the order-crazy mind is
capable of doing and why we need to stop it from doing it has been established 'beyond any reasonable doubt' and with a
force that cannot be strengthened."--Zygmunt Bauman, emeritus professor, University of Leeds
"A tour de force. . . . Reading the book delighted and inspired me. It's not the first time Jim Scott has had that
effect."--Charles Tilly, Columbia University
"Stunning ins, an original position, and a conceptual approach of global application. Scott's book will at once
take its place among the decade's truly seminal contributions to comparative politics."--M. Crawford Young, University
of Wisconsin, Madison
Synopsis
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An analysis of diverse failures in high-modernist, authoritarian state planning. It covers projects such as
collectivization in Russia and the building of Brasilia, arguing that any centrally-managed social plan must recognize
the importance of local customs and practical knowledge.