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Rating: 
Summary: Indispensible to anyone interested in social change
Review: I picked this book up in order to write my Master's thesis on dissidence and collective action in rural China. The last thing I expected to be was entertained, but most of this book is actually very good and fun reading. True, the other part is highly academic, but still accessible and absolutely essential to understanding the dynamics of change in authoritarian societies. Before Scott published his book, the dominant model for understanding participation in authoritarian societies did not extend far beyond institutional and client-patron models. Scott breaks away from this mode and demonstrates how ordinary, powerless people in repressive societies can still manage to influence policies, through such actions as sabotage, foot-dragging, and gossip. This model makes it much easier to understand, for example, how China reformed its agricultural system (although this book is about a Malaysian village, it is easily applied to most any country one wishes to study). Essential reading for political scientists and sociologists alike. After reading this book, you will have a whole different view of how change is affected, and a more sophisticated frame of analysis.
Rating:
Summary: Indispensible to anyone interested in social change
Review: I picked this book up in order to write my Master's thesis on dissidence and collective action in rural China. The last thing I expected to be was entertained, but most of this book is actually very good and fun reading. True, the other part is highly academic, but still accessible and absolutely essential to understanding the dynamics of change in authoritarian societies. Before Scott published his book, the dominant model for understanding participation in authoritarian societies did not extend far beyond institutional and client-patron models. Scott breaks away from this mode and demonstrates how ordinary, powerless people in repressive societies can still manage to influence policies, through such actions as sabotage, foot-dragging, and gossip. This model makes it much easier to understand, for example, how China reformed its agricultural system (although this book is about a Malaysian village, it is easily applied to most any country one wishes to study). Essential reading for political scientists and sociologists alike. After reading this book, you will have a whole different view of how change is affected, and a more sophisticated frame of analysis.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Whever You Go...
Review: I read this book in college and loved it because it was informative and readable, a rare combination. I didn't appreciate the value of its insights until many years later, though, when I became a corporate consultant tasked with driving organizational change. When people talk about getting buy-in, empowerment, and other workplace democracy concepts, they are all about avoiding the negative dynamics that top-down command-and-control micro-management so often elicits. Those dynamics are the same ones documented in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Useful Whever You Go...
Review: I read this book in college and loved it because it was informative and readable, a rare combination. I didn't appreciate the value of its insights until many years later, though, when I became a corporate consultant tasked with driving organizational change. When people talk about getting buy-in, empowerment, and other workplace democracy concepts, they are all about avoiding the negative dynamics that top-down command-and-control micro-management so often elicits. Those dynamics are the same ones documented in this book.
Rating:
Summary: An Important Work for Understanding Real Rebellion
Review: In understanding Chinese political violence in my Master's thesis I tried to show political power as it actually exists and functions in real life. To do this I used Scott's work, whose focus on orthopraxy over orthodoxy, miniture rebellion and slander began in this work and was continued in "Domination and the Arts of Resistance". Scott is insightful, clear and important: he shows how the elite try to raise the stakes of rebellion past what is acceptable to the subordinate and how the subordinate use the lowest risk, yet highly effective, tools of rebellion at their disposal. Required reading for those trying to understand politics without becoming mired in gross oversimplification.
Rating:
Summary: An Important Work for Understanding Real Rebellion
Review: In understanding Chinese political violence in my Master's thesis I tried to show political power as it actually exists and functions in real life. To do this I used Scott's work, whose focus on orthopraxy over orthodoxy, miniture rebellion and slander began in this work and was continued in "Domination and the Arts of Resistance". Scott is insightful, clear and important: he shows how the elite try to raise the stakes of rebellion past what is acceptable to the subordinate and how the subordinate use the lowest risk, yet highly effective, tools of rebellion at their disposal. Required reading for those trying to understand politics without becoming mired in gross oversimplification.
Rating: 
Summary: Deliberate Denial of Overt and Collective Forms of Resistanc
Review: This is an excellent book. However, there are serious shortcomings. I don't understand why Scott deliberately ignored two major peasant demonstrations in the state of Kedah in the 1980s. I suppose taking these into account would have contradicted his exaltation of the everyday forms of resistance. Surely we expect a social scientist and especially a Malaysian expert to be knowledgeable of different kinds of resistance among the peasantry. Furthermore, I would have expected Scott to explore the relationship between resistance and social change. I really wonder the concept of everyday forms of resistance can really address the class expoitation of the peasantry. Scott's works have been quite influential in Malaysia.
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