Jean E. Thomson Black—
Yale University’s remembrance of James C. Scott beautifully summarizes his life and career. We focus in this reflection on Jim’s 57-year relationship with Yale University Press as beloved author, advocate, and advisor.
The Press published almost all his books, beginning in 1968 with Political Ideology in Malaysia: Reality and Beliefs of an Elite.
Released with a hardcover binding and plain brown jacket and priced at what now seems like a quaint $8.75, Political Ideology resulted in a foreign rights sale to the University Press of Malaya—an unusual accomplishment for a first book. It was the beginning of a publications track record that embraces field-defining titles such as The Moral Economy of the Peasant, Weapons of the Weak, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, Seeing Like a State, The Art of Not Being Governed, and Against the Grain. They have become backlist classics, remain in print, and have been translated into foreign editions. Cumulatively, they have sold into eighteen foreign languages, with Against the Grain holding the record for the most at thirteen.
Jim served on the Press’s Committee on Publications for a number of terms; the available documentation records his attendance at meetings from 2001 until 2019, but he was a Committee member previously. When he first joined and served on the Committee is not presently known. His engagement with books the Committee considered was inevitably well-informed. He commented knowledgably on titles across various disciplines and topics, including art and art history, the humanities and literature, the natural and social sciences, politics, and the law. He could be diplomatic yet outspoken and honest; he was always forthright and articulately elegant, even when he took issue with a project. He had a penetrating way of looking at people around the table that made one sit up and listen intently. And he was not above commenting on the food served at these meetings (they have traditionally been lunches) if he thought it was not consistent with healthy values. Sometimes he showed up for the meetings with a present for me of fresh eggs from his chickens.
He referred authors with manuscripts he thought had potential for the Press’s publishing program. As founder of the Agrarian Studies Program, he drew on it as a source of inspiration for the Yale Agrarian Studies Series, which was established about twenty-five years ago and now offers more than seventy-five books published with more underway.
The series embraces many subjects: the environment and people in various respects, including anthropology, history, and philosophy; forestry and agriculture; economics and economic development; geography; landscape studies; political science; food studies; history of science and technology, world history, ancient history. Many have won or been finalists for book prizes in environmental history, environmental advocacy, medieval history, history of science and technology, world history, Asian culture and studies, international studies, government and politics, agriculture, and Choice magazine academic book of the year designation.
Brooks Lamb, author of Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place, has commented on what it has meant to him for his book to be included in the series: “The Agrarian Studies Series is important because it provides an intellectual-yet-unpretentious home for discussions about rural and agricultural people and places. These communities are too often forgotten, ignored, or quickly judged. But the Agrarian Studies Series ensures that thoughtfulness and nuance guide research and writing about these communities, and the series’ connection with Yale University Press yields weight and respect. For someone like me who is of a rural community and also works with farming people, the books are insightful and influential—but also enjoyable.…That Yale University Press—and Jim Scott, specifically—saw value in my work helped me feel more confident and certain that what I do matters.”
Working with Jim on book development could start with a casual comment. In an early conversation about The Art of Not Being Governed, he told me the book would consider why civilizations move downhill. That phrase did not survive, but it was a great way to think about the vast survey and big argument that became the book. For Against the Grain (based on his 2011 Tanner Lectures entitled Four Domestications: Fire, Plants, Animals, and . . . Us), the concept was why it would be preferable to be a barbarian instead of a sedentary civilization. For In Praise of Floods, he wanted to write an environmental history of rivers. As he notes in the Preface, “I’ve thought about rivers and streams for a long time, though only recently in a serious, scholarly way” and in the Introduction, “Rivers are good to ‘think with.’…If, then, we are interested in the history of human intervention into complex natural systems to turn them to human and state purposes, the example of river management offers an ideal metric.”
The book also is a lens through which to examine the relationship of the Burmese peoples with the Ayeyarwady (Irriwaddy) River, including narratives from Burmese colleagues who provided vignettes about the river spirits or nats. And there are Jim’s imaginative,first-person expositions by the nonhuman river denizens, such as the endemic dolphin, fish, birds, and other organisms.
Jim delivered and with our assistance refined the manuscript during his final illness. He was engaged with it up through approval of copy editing and book jacket design. We will take great pleasure in making it available to readers in the early months of 2025.
Jean E. Thomson Black is Senior Executive Editor for Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Environmental Sciences, and Medicine at Yale University Press.
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