Confrontations between the powerless and the powerful are laden with deception - the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, labourers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, the author, a social scientist, offers a discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage - what he terms 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 tensions and contradictions it reflects. The author describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups - their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater - their use of anonymity and ambiguity. He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally he identifies - with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign - the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power.
 |
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Sell Back Your Copy for $5.89
No matter where you bought them, get up to 70% back when you sell your books at Amazon.com.
Used Price$6.00
Trade-in Price$5.89
Price after
Trade-in$0.11 |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
45 of 51 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Spanning the entire globe and covering over 1000 years of human history, James C. Scott's Domination and the Arts of Resistance is an intellectual odyssey into the relatively new field of subaltern studies. It is also an intellectual oasis for historians and general readers of history who have become disillusioned with the traditional historiography of power relations and resistance among dominate groups and subordinate groups. Indeed, Scott's use of folklore, speeches, ballads, literary theory,linguistics, and public ceremonies, e.g., parades and political rallies, greatly adds to the works of other innovative historians of culture, domination, and resistance, e.g., Scott gives the works of Michel Focault, Hayden White, Dominick LaCapra, and Natalie Zemon Davis, to name a few, new perspectives for cultural analysis. Perhaps of greater importance is Scott's examination of what he describes as "public" and "private" transcripts,i.e., dialogue among and between the dominate and subordinate groups. Furthermore, Scott puts great emphasis on the "infrastructure" of power relationships among the respective inner "communities" of theweak and the strong. In short, what goes on behind the scenes, away from the public eye, reveals the true nature of what Scott labels as "masks of power", which are, in effect, merely public performances designed to placate both dominate and subordinate groups. This absorbing work will certainly be influential for future generations of historians, anthroplogists, political scientists, and sociologists.
By dolphin
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Scott's 'Domination' is a modern classic from which anyone could learn to read the 'transcripts' which both sides of an unequal relationship use to maintain status. Theoretical, but also practical.
However, amazon's seller sent me a supposedly 'Used - Good' copy that was on its fourth round, apparently as a used college texctbook, highlighted multiple times, with a spine falling apart -- worth 50 cents at best. BEWARE!!
However, amazon's seller sent me a supposedly 'Used - Good' copy that was on its fourth round, apparently as a used college texctbook, highlighted multiple times, with a spine falling apart -- worth 50 cents at best. BEWARE!!
9 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I got "domination" for a class, which does not tend to bias me in favor of liking a book. However, I have tentatively enjoyed reading it. It is a serious, scholarly book, but the topic is engaging and the case studies and historical examples cited are always interesting. I think that the author supports his complex thesis very well, and I would recommend this book to people who want to read something serious about race and culture.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required reading for managers
"... those people who are really good at what they do and yet are at the bottom of a management hierarchy have a power that no one else in the hierarchy has. Read more
Published on June 10, 2009 by Dmitry Vostokov
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not history -- political science but food for thought
I was recommended this book when I was at an academic conference recently. The first thing I want to note is this is not a book by a historian but by a professor of political... Read more
Published on December 13, 2007 by TammyJo Eckhart
2.0 out of 5 stars
Domination and the Arts of Resistance
This book is a clear indication of the problems with modern historians: the tendency toward presumption and the discovery of common sense as if it were a new planet. Read more
Published on January 23, 2002
5.0 out of 5 stars
an epiphany on every page
"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... Read more
Published on May 13, 1999
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
See all 100 books this book cites
100
books
cite this book:
See all 100 books citing this book
- Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Harper Torchbooks) by Peter Burke on 8 pages
- Religion and Rural Revolt by Manos M. Bak on 6 pages
- Carnival in Romans by Leroy Ladurie on 5 pages
- Carnival in Romans by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie on 5 pages
- My Bondage and My Freedom (Penguin Classics) by Frederick Douglass on 4 pages
See all 100 books this book cites
- Posing a Threat: Flappers, Chorus Girls, and Other Brazen Performers of the American 1920s by Angela J. Latham on 4 pages
- Contending with Stalinism: Soviet Power and Popular Resistance in the 1930s by Lynne Viola on page 20, page 121, and page 142
- In Service and Servitude by Christine B. N. Chin in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Urban Protest in Seventeenth-Century France: The Culture of Retribution by William Beik on page 253, and Back Matter
- New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality: Britain, 1968-1990 (Cultural Margins) by Anna Marie Smith in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 100 books citing this book
Books on Related Topics
(learn more)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Listmania!
|
|
