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Seeing Like a State

How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

by James C. Scott · 1998 · 464 pages

Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin
Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein
Recommended by 2 elites

Recommended by 2 Elites

Ezra Klein

Vitalik Buterin

About This Book

James C. Scott examines the failures of large-scale, top-down social engineering and authoritarian planning in the 20th century. He argues that states simplify complex social and natural systems to make them legible and manageable, often disregarding local knowledge and causing catastrophic human and environmental outcomes.

Genres

Economics & FinanceHistorySociety & Politics

Topics

CollectivizationHigh ModernismLegibilityMetisSocial EngineeringStatecraftUrban Planning

Book Details

Published

1998

Pages

464

Language

en

ISBN

9780300078152

Audiobook Available

16h 6m
Narrated by Michael Kramer

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Recommended by Vitalik Buterin, Ezra Klein