James C. Scott, "Behind the Official Story"?

Question

Does anyone know any thing about this text?
It's the opening chapter of Domination and the Arts of Resistance.

Thank you.

Answer 1

It is an exciting book for sociologists and political scientists. I particularly liked this Amazon reader's review:

"When the great lord passes the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts." This book marks one of those moments for me when rethink just about everything...from elusidating certain truisms to hammering out theories and ideas that ring remarkably true, Scott's book is challenging, powerful, and engaging. Reading this book is like sitting in his office conversing...I find myself exclaiming and agreeing aloud. I really enjoy his comments on gender; a concept I have felt comfortable with for years, and suddenly I feel as though he has just clarified it for me. I have been doing double-takes as random comments about women in my primary sources (about fickleness of emotion) which I thought I could chalk up to typical misogyny begin to catagorize themselves in my mind as the effects of attempting to live within hidden and public transcripts. Very readable, interesting, engaging...in a word, fabulous.


This is what other reviewers have said:

Confrontations between the powerless and the powerful are laden with deception--the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, the renowned social scientist James C. Scott offers a penetrating discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and the powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display offstage. Scott examines the ideological resistance of subordinate groups. His landmark work will revise our understanding of subordination, resistance, hegemony, folk culture, and the ideas behind revolt.


"Drawing on a dazzling array of source material, the book is a wonderful read as well as a provocative discussion of a global phenomenon of great importance. It seems destined to throw out a major challenge to the existing literature on power and domination, and to set in train a new school of research."--Anthony Reid, Australian National University


"An engaging as well as intellectually provocative book, this will be a major theoretical contribution to debates about power."--Theda Skocpol, Harvard University


"A careful analysis of the symbolic politics of resistance. Scott’s central innovation in this work is his distinction between public transcripts . . . and hidden transcripts. . . . Domination and the Arts of Resistance is an important contribution to the study of the politics and lived experience of power. It provides an important new paradigm in terms of which we can conceptualize the experience and agency of domination. It weaves together an imposing body of empirical and historical scholarship. And it makes engaging use of literary sources in developing the central theoretical construct and giving it nuance and shading. The product is a compelling and richly textured argument that will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the politics of domination and subordination."--Daniel Little, Political Theory


"Scott’s probing analysis of the roots of ’counterhegemonic discourse’ is a major contribution to the study of social and political change."--Choice


"Advanc[es] scholarship and produc[es] interesting, even fascinating, insights and other provocations."--Indochina Chronology


"Scott elaborates his argument with a dazzling array of illustrations drawn from centuries of history and all four corners of the earth. . . . Intellectually convincing and also very moving--not something one expects to find in an academic treatise."--Paul Littlewood, Sociology


"Scott argues his thesis uncompromisingly and with relentless power. From his vantagepoint it is easy to see through many standard illusions of social science. . . . Scott’s argument is all the more persuasive for the wealth of cases he brings under his magnifying-glass and for the vibrancy and liveliness of his style. One is tempted to say that his own discourse is a revelation of that transcript normally hidden by the `official’ discourse of sociology and an example of how rich and fascinating such hidden transcripts can be by comparison with the rhetoric of pretence."--Zygmunt Bauman, Times Literary Supplement


"This book offers a penetrating discussion of both the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display offstage--what is termed their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, the author examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tension and contradictions it reflects. This work will revise our understanding of subordination, resistance, hegemony, folk culture, and the ideas behind revolt."--International Journal of Psychology


"A penetrating critique of theories of hegemony and false consciousness that see the subordinates as unreflecting consumers of dominant ideologies and that attribute manipulative skills solely to the powerful. . . . A wide-ranging discussion of the possibilities of the ’arts of political disguise’. . . . A very fine and suggestive book that has opened up many new avenues of exploration for all social scientists interested in the deeper complexities of power relationships."--Bob Scribner, American Journal of Sociology


"This inspiring book sets forth a general theeeory of discourse and power relations. . . . A superb example of theory that keeps close to the ground of ethnographic evidence, his own as well as an erudite array of examples eclectically drawn from other ethnographies, slave narratives, historical broadsheets, archives, folklore, popular culture, and literature. . . . A bracing antidote to narrow circumscriptions of the public sphere that are, by and large, bounded by middle-class experience and privilege."--Dwight Conquergood, Quarterly Journal of Speech


"An amazingly prodigious, sophisticated book."--Robin D. G. Kelley, American Quarterly


"Scott’s work, with its index of many of the forms and determinants of disguised discourse is an impressive and practical strategy for replacing the "humble folk" with a politicized folk, or otherwise investigating the social category of the discipline."--Tracy M. Lord, Journal of American Folklore


"An extremely well-crafted, provocative book that explores both the public and private discourses of the powerful and the powerless. . . . In brilliantly articulating the role of culture and voice in domination and resistance, this book itself becomes a public transcript of sociological issues which have often been ignored or underestimated."--John Gaventa, Contemporary Sociology


"Likely to become a classic work of theory in the social sciences and history. Its arguments are original, subtle, clear, and accessible to readers without theoretical inclinations."--John D. Rogers, The Journal of Asian Studies

Hope you also enjoy it.
Good luck.

Answer 2

The Official Story Summary

Answer 3

reading is way better the book continues u thinking therefore you get greater detail in what folks are thinking and you simply get more imagination

Answer 4

Reading the publication instead of observing the movie is the ultimate way to see what the author meant. Reading uses your thoughts, hones your reading skills, and can transform your vocabulary