Against the Mane

How Barbaric Was the ‘The Golden Age of Barbarians

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7700484
AutoresJoshua Wright (0000-0003-4300-5568, Department of Archaeology, autor de correspondencia)
Año2019
Volumen29
Número4
Páginas712-714
Fecha de publicación2019-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCambridge Archaeological Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0959-7743 • E-ISSN: 1474-0540
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0959774319000428
OpenAlexW2982422292
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas11

Against the Grain is both a wide-ranging voyage of discovery and a regionally focused study of the trajectory of agriculture from its earliest appearance until historical times, coupled with discussion of the mechanisms that maintained early states. For Scott, the state is a fragile entity (pp. 21, 23, 118, 125) based on the production of grain, along with water transport, city walls, tax collection, specialized administrators, monumental centres, kings, social hierarchy, filth, epidemic disease and an insatiable demand for enslaved labour. With such a definition, there is a little hope that the societies of Eurasian pastoral nomads can be seen as anything other than ‘barbarians’ living outside the laws and hierarchies of agricultural states. It is these Eurasian nomadic pastoralists and their relations with the state that will form the focus of this commentary

Agriculture · Ancient history · Archaeology · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Hierarchy · Livestock · Pastoralism · Political science · Politics · Social hierarchy · Social organization · Sociology · State formation · Anthropology · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Law · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Soviet and Russian History